Historic Black Neighborhoods of Raleigh

by Carmen Wimberley Cauthen

The story of Raleigh's African American communities begins before the Civil War. Towns like Oberlin Village were built by free people of color in the antebellum era. During Reconstruction, the creation of thirteen freedmen's villages defined the racial boundaries of Raleigh. These neighborhoods demonstrate the determination and resilience of formerly enslaved North Carolinians. After World War II, new suburbs sprang up, telling tales of the growth and struggles of the Black community under Jim Crow. Many of these communities endure today. Dozens of never before published pictures and maps illustrate this hidden history. Local historian Carmen Wimberly Cauthen tells the story of a people who--despite slavery--wanted to learn, grow, and be treated as any others.

Genres: History

136 pages, Paperback

Published January 9, 2023

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books like this are critical for the preservation of Black history that is being erased by gentrification. I enjoyed getting to know my city better.

[path · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a kind of ephemerality to neighborhoods. They are material in some ways, as geographical and municipal spaces, outlined on city plats. Even historical neighborhoods leave some traces, whether materially in churches or residences that still sit on the same foundations, or in the remnants of old fences and roads, or even in the palimpsests of things that “used to be there” and only leave their impressions on the built environment around where they once stood. But a neighborhood is more than that, it is an achievement, the result of an effort put forth by people who want and care to associate with one another, and that is the part that comes and goes.

Cauthen tries to capture all of these senses in which historical black neighborhoods existed in Raleigh. The chapters in this book fleshed out the details of the acreages, the plots of land carved out of defunct plantations, and their placement in a growing city. The author also sketched the more dynamic layers of neighborhoods, including the volunteer fire departments, schools, churches, filling stations, restaurants, pharmacies, attorneys, shop keepers, bricklayers, and carpenters, all the people who helped create communities out of collections of people who lived in the same area.

The book is also a historical record of how, from the years immediately following the Civil War, through Reconstruction, and into the Civil Rights era the very existence of these neighborhoods was challenged. Denial of services, underrepresentation, neglect, intolerance — all of these factors shaped neighborhoods socially. It shaped them geographically as well, pushing residents into low-lying lands, into undesirable locations, clustering them together, dividing and isolating them. These changes eventually get captured and cemented into the modern city, frozen in its geography.

The book also tells of neighborhoods that were obliterated as the city grew and different municipal projects took priority, or of neighborhoods that were obliterated by harmful policy (enacted out of malice or ignorance) replacing whole blocks with more profitable housing in terms of name of “urban renewal,” or dividing neighborhoods by laying down highways or other transportation infrastructure that divided people from their neighbors, or set standards out of a dubious sense of “public good” that undercut meaningful local efforts at creating the very infrastructure that allowed neighborhoods to reinvest in themselves (e.g., the Flexner Report, which resulted in the closing some HBCU medical schools for failing to meet new national “standards”).

As I read the chapters in this light, the gaps between the stories, the smallness of the fragments, and the incompleteness of the records began to tell as much of the story as the details that the author did, remarkably and expertly, collect and tell.

I’ve lived in Raleigh for nearly 25 years at this point, and I knew some of these neighborhoods: Oberlin Village, Method, Hungry Neck, South Park. There are also many that I didn’t know, but in reading about them I am coming to see some of the lasting impact they had on the shape of this city.

[Cameron Cooper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Super interesting and detailed, but it's more of a survey as opposed to history telling which I was hoping for.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Raleigh-based historian Carmen Wimberley Cauthen published a book entitled Historic Black Neighborhoods of Raleigh in 2023. Cauthen writes, “The city of Raleigh was established in 1792 as the capital of the state of North Carolina before the Civil War and the end of slavery. The city was platted after the purchase of the land from Joel Lane” (Cauthen 15). The book is focused on the historic era of the city of Raleigh that covered the history of Raleigh between the end of the Civil War until the 1970s. Cauthen writes that “this book will look at politics, institutions, people and the roles they all played in growing the city of Raleigh’s neighborhoods through the 1970s” (Cauthen 13). The book has charts, maps, and black and white photographs. The book has a conclusion (Cauthen 227), a bibliography and an index. Cauthen writes “register neighborhoods are losing their character as they are modernized. The history behind their builds is important for all to know’ (Cauthen 227). Throughout the book, Cauthen provides profiles of people who influenced their respective neighborhoods between the end of the Civil War and the 1970s. The book is very detailed. Cauthen’s book, entitled Historic Black Neighborhoods of Raleigh, is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Raleigh.