Once again, the 2024 electoral cycle showed that North Carolina is a battleground state. What few know is that it has often been a battleground state! This article starts with the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
The subject of Scottish folklore and myth, Flora MacDonald assisted Prince Charles Stuart in his escape from King George II during the Jacobite rebellion. In 1774, Flora and her family moved to the North Carolina colony, and Flora’s husband and son fought for the Loyalists during the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge. The Jacobite heroine returned to her native Scotland in 1779 where she died
The Halifax Resolves is the name later given to a resolution adopted by the Fourth Provincial Congress of the Province of North Carolina on April 12, 1776. The resolution was a forerunner of the United States Declaration of Independence.
The United States Supreme Court’s ruling in the Brown v Board of Education (1954) declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Following the Brown ruling, North Carolina enacted legislation that undermined the Supreme Court ruling. In August 1954 and in response to the Brown decision, Governor William B. Umstead created a “Governor’s Special Advisory Committee on Education,” with Thomas Pearsall, a prominent Rocky Mount farmer and businessman and former North Carolina Speaker of the House, as chairman.
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.
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.
The Edenton Tea Party was one of the earliest organized women’s political actions in United States history. On October 25, 1774, Mrs. Penelope Barker organized, at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth King, fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina. Together they formed an alliance wholeheartedly supporting the American cause against “taxation without representation.”
Pyle’s Defeat: A Little-Known Rout with Big Consequences
Pyle’s Defeat occurred in February 1781 near the end of the Revolution. It was a savage blow to British hopes, as Lt. Gen. Charles, Lord Cornwallis attempted to stop the Patriots’ momentum.
Richard Etheridge
Richard Etheridge was the first African American to command a lifesaving station in the United States. Lifesaving stations on the Atlantic Coast were responsible for rescuing people from shipwrecks in the late 1800s. Etheridge also fought for the Union in the Civil War and continued to fight for civil rights for the African American community...
James H. Harris (1832 – 1891)
Described by W.E.B. Du Bois as a politician of “great ability,” James Henry Harris was perhaps the most consequential black political leader in nineteenth-century North Carolina.[1] By the time of his death in 1891, Harris had served as chair or president of several state and national equal-rights conventions, a delegate to the 1868 North Carolina...
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Since 1951, Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest has been a leader in the cultural and theological changes within Baptist churches, especially those affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Baptists in the United States formed the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions in 1814. Also...
Rosenwald Schools
North Carolina once had about 800 Rosenwald schools. These schools, made possible by Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears & Co., taught African American children in the early 1900s, when public schools in the South were segregated and poorly funded.[1] However, today these schools are little known to the public. In 1915, North Carolina’s first Rosenwald...
Braxton Craven: Forgotten Educator (1822 – 1882)
“The history of Trinity College is the history of Braxton Craven.” So said Thomas N. Ivey, an early biographer of the Methodist minister and educator. Ivey, a graduate of Trinity College, astutely described the inseparable connection between the man and the institution. Craven (1822–1882) devoted his life and career to building a humble school into...
Elizabeth City State University
Located in Pasquotank County, Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) was formed in 1891 as a school to teach African-American educators. The school offers over thirty undergraduate degrees and four master’s programs. Over 3,000 students are currently enrolled at ECSU.
Meherrin Nation
The Meherrin are Native Americans who resided in northeastern North Carolina near the river of the same name. As of 2011 there were approximately 900 members.
Manteo
Manteo was a Carolina Algonquian who assisted the three English expeditions to Roanoke Island during the 1580s. Governor John White declared Manteo to be Lord of Roanoke in 1587. Manteo was the first person baptized in America into the Church of England.
University of Mount Olive
The University of Mount Olive opened its doors in 1952, after the Convention of Original Free Will Baptists approved the founding of a junior college named Allen Junior College.
John White (ca. 1540 – 1593)
John White was an artist, surveyor, cartographer, and colonizer who attended the second and third expeditions to Roanoke Island in the late-1500s. During the first attempt to colonize Roanoke (1585-1586), White served as the expedition’s artist and cartographer. During the second attempt at colonization in 1587, White served as the governor of the colony. His granddaughter Virginia Dare was the first English child born in America. He returned to England to request aid, but his return was delayed. When he returned in 1590, the colony had disappeared. Today, it is today known as the “Lost Colony.”
Carolina University
Carolina University is a non-denominational Christian school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Founded in 1947 by Dr. Charles H. Stevens, it offers courses from theology to engineering.