African American
African American Innovation During Difficult Economic and Discriminatory Times
1866-1915
On November 10, 1898, a disgraceful event in North Carolina occurred: as part of the White Supremacy campaign of the 1890s, Democratic leaders in Wilmington overthrew leading black and white Republicans and Populists to regain control of Wilmington’s government. What happened in Wilmington, many assert, “suppressed the political, social, educational and economic development and aspirations of African-Americans in this state for over ninety years.” Although innovative blacks worked in unfair circumstances during the late 1800s and early 1900s, such assumptions reveal a 1960s Revisionist focus on failure instead of an emphasis on black agency and fortitude that reveals how African Americans remarkably achieved success during difficult times.
Aaron McDuffie Moore (1863-1923)
Born on September 6, 1863 to free yeoman farmer parents, Aaron McDuffie Moore used educational opportunities to improve his social condition and to better his community.
African American Innovation During Difficult Economic and Discriminatory Times
On November 10, 1898, a disgraceful event in North Carolina occurred: as part of the White Supremacy campaign of the 1890s, Democratic leaders in Wilmington overthrew leading black and white Republicans and Populists to regain control of Wilmington’s government. What happened in Wilmington, many assert, “suppressed the political, social, educational and economic development and aspirations of African-Americans in this state for over ninety years.” Although innovative blacks worked in unfair circumstances during the late 1800s and early 1900s, such assumptions reveal a 1960s Revisionist focus on failure instead of an emphasis on black agency and fortitude that reveals how African Americans remarkably achieved success during difficult times.
David Walker (1785 – 1830)
Born in Wilmington, North Carolina to a free mother and a slaver father, David Walker later moved to Boston, Massachusetts and emerged as one of the United States’s most radical black pamphleteers. In his Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, Walker urged slaves to revolt against their masters and criticized the state of Christianity in the young North American nation. He died mysteriously in 1830.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
The "best-known, nineteenth-century African-American woman's autobiography" is how historian Nell Irvin Painter describes Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written By Herself (1861).The Tar Heel's work is also noteworthy because Jacobs penned the words, unlike other slave autobiographies, including Sojourner Truth's, which were dictated.
Harriet Jacobs (1813 – 1897)
A former North Carolina slave turned abolitionist and author, Harriet Jacobs was born in bondage in Edenton. In her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), Jacobs describes the abuse that she endured while a slave and is the best-known autobiography written by an African American woman during the 19th century.
Levi Coffin (1798 – 1877)
A business owner, Quaker, abolitionist, and an organizer of the Underground Railroad, Levi Coffin was born in New Garden, North Carolina. According to Coffin, “The Underground Railroad business increased as time advanced, and it was attended with heavy expenses, which I could not have borne had not my affairs been prosperous.”
Henry E. Frye (1932- )
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.
Pearsall Plan: North Carolina’s Response to Brown v. Board of Education
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.
Civil Rights Movement
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.
Wilbur J. Cash (1900-1941)
Although historians disagree regarding W.J. Cash's conclusions about the Old and New South, they agree that all serious scholars of Southern history and culture must be familiar with Mind of the South. In it, the North Carolinian predicted the Civil Rights Movement. He died an untimely death in Mexico City in 1941.
Shaw University
From its beginning in 1865, Shaw University has been a forerunner in starting educational programs among historically black colleges, and in 1960, it served as the birthplace of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the Civil Rights Movement.
SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)
Started by Ella Baker, a Shaw University alumna, SNCC used a more decentralized and local strategy than other civil rights organizations and provided leadership examples for other 1960s protest groups. After SNCC’s formation at the Raleigh institutution, sit-ins became more frequent. As the decade continued, SNCC leadership started emphasizing Black Power, contradicting conservative, ministerial leadership in other organizations, and thereby revealing discontent and disagreement within the Civil Rights Movement.