Collection Timeline

1660 to 2020

1660
Multi-part article about African Americans in North Carolina

1730
An article about loyalist Thomas Peters

1760
Article about John Chavis

1790
An article about loyalist Thomas Peters
Article about the AME church

1810
Article about Harriet Jacobs

1820
Article about African American newspapers
Article about North Carolina businessman Hiram Revels

1830
Article about John Chavis
Article about James Walker Hood

1850
Report published by the History and Records Ministry Team at First Baptist Church Hillsborough, NC. The report includes information about African American members of the church from its inception in 1853 through 1868, when an independent African American church was formed and later named Mount Bright Baptist Church. Includes transcription of church minutes where African American members were mentioned and a list of African American members' names.
Article about Anna Julia Cooper
Article about author Charles Chesnutt
Article about businessman John Merrick

1860
Report published by the History and Records Ministry Team at First Baptist Church Hillsborough, NC. The report includes information about African American members of the church from its inception in 1853 through 1868, when an independent African American church was formed and later named Mount Bright Baptist Church. Includes transcription of church minutes where African American members were mentioned and a list of African American members' names.
Article about Freedmen's Conventions
Article about the Black Caucus of the Constitutional Convention of 1868 from the Tar Heel Junior Historian
Article about Anna Julia Cooper
Article about Alex Manly
Article about businessman Berry O'Kelly

1870
Article about Judge Armond Wendell Scott, a native of Wilmington, NC.

1880
Article about Charlotte Hawkins Brown
Legislation granting articles of incorporation to Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina.

1890
Article about the NC Mutucal Life Insurance Company
Article about dressmaker Willie Otey Kay
Article about Harriet Jacobs

1900
Group photograph of students and employees of Palmer Institute in front of Memorial Hall
The photograph shows twelve students from the Palmer Institute baseball team. Included in the picture is their equiment, bats, gloves, basesball, protective gear, and a banner.
Palmer Memorial Institute's football team
Palmer Institute girls tennis class on the tennis court
Wedding portrait of Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown.
Professor Jacob's School, African-American, students and teacher in front of school, early 1900's, Lake Waccamaw, NC, Columbus County. From the General Negative Collection, North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC.
Photograph, of an unknown Rosenwald Fund schoolhouse.
Photograph: the "Old" Johns, Scotland County Schoolhouse
A photograph of a Rosenwald Fund schoolhouse built in Southern Pines, North Carolina.
Article about the National Negro Business League
Article about Parrish Street in Durham.
Article about North Carolina businessman Hiram Revels
Article about Ella Baker
Article about Selma Burke

1910
These papers include correspondence, newsletters, reports, statistics, programs, and a photograph. Subjects include the Jeanes Fund, Jeanes teachers, teaching requirements, school visits, and issues in schools. The State Supervisor of Elementary Education in the Division of Negro Education travelled the state monitoring the quality of African American elementary schools, conducting meetings with school staff, organizing funding, and teaching demonstration classes.
Article about African American soldiers who contributed to the war effort during World War I.
Article about the Rosewald Fund
Article about James Walker Hood
Article about businessman John Merrick
Aritcle about jazz musician Thelonious Monk
Aritcle about lawyer and activist Pauli Murray

1920
Photograph from a vocational conference. Future Homemakers of America collection, 1929-1984, includes correspondence, reports, news clippings, lists of officers, audits, programs, budgets, photographs, and other records on the history of Future Homemakers of America, New Homemakers of America, and Home Economics Related Occupations. New Homemakers of America, a club for African Americans, merged with Future Homemakers of America when school segregation ended.
Unidentified photographs. Future Homemakers of America collection, 1929-1984, includes correspondence, reports, news clippings, lists of officers, audits, programs, budgets, photographs, and other records on the history of Future Homemakers of America, New Homemakers of America, and Home Economics Related Occupations. New Homemakers of America, a club for African Americans, merged with Future Homemakers of America when school segregation ended.
Photograph, of an unknown Rosenwald Fund schoolhouse.
Photograph: the "Old" Johns, Scotland County Schoolhouse
A photograph of a Rosenwald Fund schoolhouse built in Southern Pines, North Carolina.
Article about the Colored Merchants Association from the Tar Heel Junior Historian
Article about Maya Angelou
Article about jazz musician John Coltrane
Article about Golden Frinks from the Tar Heel Junior Historian
Article about Sarah Keys

1930
Article about the Colored Merchants Association from the Tar Heel Junior Historian
Article about musician Nina Simone
Article about businessman Berry O'Kelly
Article about author Charles Chesnutt
Article about singer Roberta Flack, a native of North Carolina
Article about the Green Book, a guide for black travelers journeying within the United States and abroad to help navigate segregation.
Webpage about The Green Book, a travel guide and a tool of resistance designed to confront the realities of racial discrimination in the United States and beyond.

1940
Correspondence to and from Nathan Carter Newbold's office, the Director of the Division of Negro Education for the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction from 1913 to 1950. The folder contains correspondence and newspaper clippings on the Lumberton School Strike, a protest against poor conditions within the two designated African American schools in Lumberton, North Carolina.
DeLores (Dee) Todd Interview, 2019-06-10 [SHE.OH.009]
Article about the Rosewald Fund
Article about Alex Manly
Three young African-American children carrying schoolbooks ("Essentials of Everyday English") stand looking into the display window of the Market Street Branch Library in the YMI building in Asheville. The library branch, first called the "Colored Library," opened in 1927 on South Market Street. The name was changed to Market Street Branch of City Libraries in 1951. The branch moved to another part of the YMI building, facing Eagle Street, in 1959. That branch closed in 1966, following the desegregation of the library system in 1962. Window is stenciled: "Colored Public Library - Hrs 9-12, 2-6." The subject of the window display is China, with plants, dolls, newspapers, and books. The names of the children are (left to right) Spencer White, Frank Owens Jr., and Dorothy Owens. They were students at the Shiloh Elementary School in Asheville at the time this photo was taken.

1950
These papers include correspondence, newsletters, reports, statistics, programs, and a photograph. Subjects include the Jeanes Fund, Jeanes teachers, teaching requirements, school visits, and issues in schools. The State Supervisor of Elementary Education in the Division of Negro Education travelled the state monitoring the quality of African American elementary schools, conducting meetings with school staff, organizing funding, and teaching demonstration classes.
Article about former US Attorny General Loretta Lynch, a NC native
Article about boxer Sugar Ray Leonard
A family picnicking under a picnic shelter, circa 1950. Jones Lake State Park opened in the summer of 1939 as the first state park for African Americans, and achieved immediate popularity. In later years the park, like all other North Carolina State Parks, became fully integrated.

1960
Photo of African American sitting at a counter
Photo of African American sitting at a counter
An article about the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
African American men walking down a street carrying a banner reading "Freedom for all People!"
African American women picketers holding signs calling for justice.
African Americans picketing Sir Walter Hotel
A group of African American protesters chanting and clapping on the lawn of the Executive Mansion in Raleigh
African American men protesters crowded into a jail cell
Chief Justice Cheri Beasley Interview, 2019-07-25 [SHE.OH.011]
Article about Parrish Street in Durham.
Article about the Greensboro Four
Article about Judge Armond Wendell Scott, a native of Wilmington, NC.
Article about Charlotte Hawkins Brown
Article about jazz musician John Coltrane
Article about the Green Book, a guide for black travelers journeying within the United States and abroad to help navigate segregation.
Webpage about The Green Book, a travel guide and a tool of resistance designed to confront the realities of racial discrimination in the United States and beyond.
Children racing into the water at the beach area, circa 1963. Jones Lake State Park opened in the summer of 1939 as the first state park for African Americans, and achieved immediate popularity. In later years the park, like all other North Carolina State Parks, became fully integrated.
C. Payne Lucas and his wife, Freddie Hill Lucas, picnic on the beach, circa 1960. Payne Lucas, born in Spring Hope, N.C., was active in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, served in the U.S. Air Force, and earned a master's degree in government, all before he joined the Peace Corps in 1962 for ten years of service in Africa. When he returned to the United States in 1971, he co-founded and served as president of Africare, a non-profit organization specializing in aid to Africa. Since his retirement from Africare in 2002, he has continued to be an AIDS activist, and has received several national awards for public service. Dr. William Sharpe of New York purchased Bear Island and a mainland site known as "the Hammocks" in the 1920s. At the suggestion of the estate caretakers, John and Gertrude Hurst, Sharpe donated the land to the North Carolina Teachers Association, an organization for African American teachers, in 1950 to manage as a beach for African Americans during a time when public beaches were segregated. The Hammocks Beach Corporation was then organized to develop the island for recreation, but after unsuccessful attempts to raise funds, negotiated with the state to open Hammoks Beach as a state park for African Americans in May 1961. Several years later, the park was integrated and opened to all.

1970
Article about Black and African Amerian North Carolina award winners.

1980
Transcript of a speech by Earl E. Thorpe bout Black History
Photograph from a vocational conference. Future Homemakers of America collection, 1929-1984, includes correspondence, reports, news clippings, lists of officers, audits, programs, budgets, photographs, and other records on the history of Future Homemakers of America, New Homemakers of America, and Home Economics Related Occupations. New Homemakers of America, a club for African Americans, merged with Future Homemakers of America when school segregation ended.
Unidentified photographs. Future Homemakers of America collection, 1929-1984, includes correspondence, reports, news clippings, lists of officers, audits, programs, budgets, photographs, and other records on the history of Future Homemakers of America, New Homemakers of America, and Home Economics Related Occupations. New Homemakers of America, a club for African Americans, merged with Future Homemakers of America when school segregation ended.
Article about the African American Dance Ensemble in Durham
Article about musician J. Cole
Aritcle about jazz musician Thelonious Monk
Aritcle about lawyer and activist Pauli Murray
Article about Ella Baker

1990
Catalog of a travelling exhibition held at Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, May 5-July 15, 1990 and others; Includes bibliographical references.
A history of African American neighborhoods in New Bern, NC
A history of Beaufort's African American neighborhood
A report about the development of late nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth century African-American neighborhoods in Winston-Salem.
Brochure on the life of Charlotte Hawkins Brown and her work with the Palmer Institute. Includes visitor information for the Charlotte Brown Hawkins Memorial and Palmer Institute historic site, images and map.
An article about the history of African Americans in North Carolina
Article about dressmaker Willie Otey Kay
Article about Selma Burke

2000
A history of African Americans in North Carolina that uses primary sources.
A guide for searching the NC State Archives for records of African Americans
A guide to explore the history of the African American community in North Carolina
Traces the history and culture of African Americans in North Carolina from 1712 to 2011.
Article about musician Nina Simone
Article about Golden Frinks from the Tar Heel Junior Historian
Exterior restoration project sign
Front exterior view of the Thomas Day House and Union Tavern
Thomas Day House, Union Tavern Restoration, Inc.
Exterior view of the YMI Cultural Center
Article about Harvey Gannt getting an honorary degree from UNC-Charlotte
Front exterior view of the James E. Cheek Learning Resource Center, which houses Shaw University's Archives and Special Collections
The front entrance to the Bennett College campus
Exterior of Johnson C. Smith University's James B. Duke Memorial Library, which houses the Inez Moore Parker Archives and Research Center, the University Archives

2010
Proclamation of Black History Monthy by Governor McCrory in 2016.
Transcript of Governor Bev Perdue's speech honoring Tuskegee Airman from North Carolina at a Black History event in 2012.
A report on the community-responsive development of the NC African American Heritage Commission
Article about Maya Angelou
Records contain official proclamations issued by the Governor on behalf of various organizations and individuals, or in relation to public events.
Article section that focuses on former mayor of Charlotte, Harvey Gantt
Spring/Summer 2013 quarterly magazine for Fayetteville State University
A brief overview of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) with a link to an interactive timeline as well as links to articles about specific HBCUs in North Carolina.

2020
Program for the opening of Freedom Park in Raleigh, NC.
Article about the Freedom Park in Raleigh, NC.
Proclamation of Black History Monthy by Governor Cooper in 2024.
National Park Service article about artist Ann Miller Woodford
The Boosting the Block project advances key elements in the Pack Square Plaza Vision Plan, including the planning, design and implementation of a gateway and cultural corridor along South Market Street. It incorporates place-based investments and programming that enhances the area’s physical and cultural environment. The resulting work will support a more authentic and truthful narrative about the past, present and future of the historic Black business district and multicultural hub in Asheville known as The Block.
Article about Sarah Keys
Webpage about Black History month
Calendar of Black History Month events
PDF document toolkit for learn more about Black History month