Chronology

A count of Chapel Hill finds 483 white and 454 Black residents

Four years after emancipation, Chapel Hill had 483 white and 454 Black residents, close to half and half. Freed families were making homes on the village's western side, on West Cameron Avenue, West Franklin Street and around Potter's Field west of Church Street.

Black families make homes on Lot 16 on East Franklin Street

After E. Hunt closed his boarding house and Dr. Johnston B. Jones left town, Black families moved into both buildings: Tom Moore into the larger two-story house and the Burnett family into the small former medicine shop. Several other Black families settled on what had been Lot 16.

Toney and Nellie Strayhorn, formerly enslaved, bought thirty acres in what became Carrboro

The Strayhorns bought about thirty acres and built a one-room log cabin at what is now 109 Jones Ferry Road, and their son William built the house next door at 107 in 1915. Toney Strayhorn is remembered as a founder of First Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, and the house is still owned by a great-granddaughter.

Subject: Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House and William Strayhorn House

Black families' homes on Lot 16 are razed and an Alpha Tau Omega cottage goes up

The houses of Jordan Weaver, a Black preacher, and of two other Black families who had built on the old Lot 16 were torn down, and a cottage for the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity was built on the lot facing the Episcopal church.

Cotton Chapel CME Church, the forerunner of St. Joseph CME, was organized

Chapel Hill members of the Colored Methodist Episcopal church, who had worshipped at Hamlet Chapel in Pittsboro, formed their own congregation named for founder Henry Cotton. Its first building later burned and was rebuilt as a frame church.

Black-owned town lots in Chapel Hill nearly double in ten years

The African American community's real estate grew from 98 lots in 1910 to 170 in 1920. The same passage names Black-owned barber, shoe repair, restaurant, grocery and pressing businesses of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The Strayhorn log cabin on Jones Ferry Road reaches its two-story form

Toney Strayhorn, born enslaved in Orange County, became a farmer and brick mason and in the late 1800s built a one-room log cabin on his tract. He and later his son William enlarged it until, by about 1910, it stood two stories high with a rear ell and big brick end chimneys that show the family's skill.

Subject: Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House and William Strayhorn House

The Chapel Hill Community Club runs an improvement contest in a Black neighborhood

Susan Moses Graham and the Community Club, with YMCA students under Frank Porter Graham, organized a project in an African American neighborhood at the edge of town, giving prizes for the cleanest house, the cleanest yard and the best fence.

People: Frank Porter Graham

Subject: University YMCA

Contractor Charles Craige builds a gambrel-roofed bungalow for mason William Strayhorn

The house at 107 Jones Ferry Road was built for William and Margie Strayhorn beside the home of his father Toney, head of a family of brick masons. William died young in 1933; his daughter Laura and her husband Albert Reaves kept the house in 1983.

Subject: Toney and Nellie Strayhorn House and William Strayhorn House

Hackney's school on Merritt Mill Road is bought for a public training school

Louis Hackney had opened his school for Black students on Merritt Mill Road in 1912. In 1916 the property was bought for a public training school for Black students, after Black residents raised $3,000 toward the purchase.

People: Louis H. Hackney

Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

Carpenter Luther Hargrave builds a bungalow on Lindsay Street for his daughter's family

In the African American section of Northside west of Church Street, carpenter Luther Hargrave built a side-gabled bungalow with a large front dormer at 308 Lindsay Street in 1920 for his daughter and her husband.

Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

Luther R. Hargraves built the tin-roofed houses that gave Tin Top its name

Luther R. Hargraves, a carpenter and Chapel Hill's first African American mortician, built a row of houses with tin roofs on Hargraves Street near the railroad tracks behind St. Paul AME, and the cluster became known as Tin Top or Tin Top Alley.

Kennon Cheek helps negotiate the land swap that brought Hackney's school to Northside

Cheek's daughter Marian Cheek Jackson said he was instrumental in negotiating the 1924 land swap that moved Hackney's Educational and Industrial School from South Merritt Mill Road into the Northside community.

Part of Northside, Pine Knolls, and Tin Top · 43 events

Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School

The Black neighborhood on the Chapel Hill line spreads west into Partridge Field

In the late 1930s the African American neighborhood straddling the Chapel Hill and Carrboro line grew west into Partridge Field. Only then, the book says, was it readily counted as part of either town; segregation and the community's own sense of itself had kept it apart, with its churches and schools facing Chapel Hill.

St. Joseph CME built its first church on West Rosemary Street

Henry Baldwin, Margaret Burnette and Kennon Cheek mortgaged their homes for the down payment on the Rosemary Street lot, which Black leaders had judged too small for a new high school. A frame church went up under Rev. Joseph S. Miller and was dedicated as St. Joseph Colored Methodist Episcopal Church.

People: Kennon Cheek

Second Baptist Church is organized in Chapel Hill

A second Black Baptist congregation was organized in Chapel Hill and put up its building in April 1938.

Jeter and Ethel Neville buy a corner lot at Cobb and Broad streets in Carrboro

On September 13, 1944, Jeter and Ethel Neville bought a small lot at the northwest corner of Cobb and Broad streets, in the Lloyd-Broad section of the Black Northside neighborhood, from Guilford Realty and Insurance Company. Jeter Neville was a janitor at Northside Elementary School.

Subject: Jeter and Ethel Neville House

Black mason John Wesley Campbell and his sons build the stone Neville House in Carrboro

John Wesley Campbell and his sons, with Jeter Neville and mason Earnest Farrar, built the Nevilles' one-and-a-half-story bungalow of granite fieldstone trimmed in red brick, with an arcaded porch and a star and crescent moon set in stone beside the front windows. Campbell's son Handy said the stones came by army truck from Chatham County; the house is the least altered of Campbell's five 1940s stone buildings in Northside.

Subject: Jeter and Ethel Neville House

John Wesley Campbell builds a fieldstone house for a pastor on North Graham Street

John Wesley Campbell designed and built a large fieldstone house at 214 North Graham Street in Northside for a local pastor, finished in 1945 and one of the first houses on the street. It is the largest of his four stone houses in the neighborhood, with a broad arched corner porch and a stone end chimney.

Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

Mason Alfred Barbee builds his own house on Jones Ferry Road

After working at the Carrboro munitions plant during the war, the African American mason Alfred Barbee spent three years building his own house on Jones Ferry Road near the Strayhorn family homes, using his carpentry as well as his masonry skills.

The Campbells build a stone bungalow for carpenter Vance Thompson on Broad Street

Next door to the Neville House, John Wesley Campbell and his sons designed and built a fieldstone Craftsman bungalow at 201 Broad Street for carpenter Vance Thompson and his family just after World War II. Land records show it finished by 1947; a Thompson son recalls moving in in 1946, and the family kept it until 2013.

George Campbell and his father build a stone house on North Graham Street

On a lot owned by George Campbell, he and his father John Wesley Campbell, helped by the other Campbell sons, designed and built a small one-story fieldstone house at 203 North Graham Street, finished in 1948. It is the only one of the family's Northside stone houses whose stonework runs up into the gable.

Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

The Town of Chapel Hill buys land for a new cemetery for its Black residents

The town bought about ten acres of the former Roberson property, just beyond the railroad on the Carrboro side of town, for a segregated cemetery for Black residents. It became the West Chapel Hill Cemetery on Village Drive.

African American flower sellers known as the Flower Ladies set up on Franklin Street

A group of Black vendors, each working independently, began selling fresh-cut flowers on the Franklin Street sidewalk around 1950 and became one of the town's best-known enterprises.

The name Northside began to replace Pottersfield and Sunset

When the old Lincoln building became Northside Elementary in 1951, the school's name spread to the Black neighborhoods around it. By the mid-1950s Pottersfield, north of West Rosemary and west of Columbia Street, and its western neighbor Sunset were both being called Northside.

Subject: Northside School

Stephen J. Edwards's Midway Barber Shop is open on West Rosemary Street

Edwards's Midway Barber Shop was advertising on West Rosemary Street, at the Chapel Hill and Carrboro line, by late 1952. His son Stepney Edwards later ran the Black-owned shop.

Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

Rock Hill Baptist, renamed First Baptist, holds its first services on North Roberson Street

The Black Baptist congregation organized in 1865 had worshipped for decades as Rock Hill Baptist Church on the south side of West Franklin Street. Under its pastor, the Rev. J. R. Manley, it raised $10,001 in the first months of 1952 and began a colonial-style brick church on North Roberson Street between Franklin and Rosemary streets. The first services in the $100,000 building were held on Sunday, September 27, 1953, opening three weeks of dedication services; with the move the congregation took the name First Baptist Church. By early 1954 the old Franklin Street lot stood vacant.

Subject: First Baptist Church, Chapel Hill

Charlie Mason's motor court on West Rosemary Street was lodging Black travelers

Mason's Motor Court at 603 West Rosemary Street, with the Starlite Supper Club, gave Black travelers and touring musicians a place to stay when other Chapel Hill hotels turned them away. The building is gone and the Greenbridge condominiums now stand on the site.

Northside Elementary closed as the school system integrated

The Caldwell Street school closed soon after the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools began mandatory integration in 1966, and the building was turned into office space.

Part of School desegregation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1959–1967 · 24 events

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · Northside School

Stonemason John Wesley Campbell, builder of Northside stone houses, dies

John Wesley Campbell, born about 1888 to a white father and a Black mother and trained in masonry from age seven, died in 1968. He worked on UNC buildings, Memorial Hospital and Franklin Street stores, built stone houses and the Hargraves Center in Northside, and taught the trade to his five sons and other Black masons.

Northside and Pine Knolls residents resist federal urban renewal

When Northside and Pine Knolls were targeted for urban renewal, residents confronted HUD and avoided the wholesale clearance seen in Durham's Hayti, winning home improvements and new construction instead.

Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

The Flower Ladies move off the main sidewalk to NCNB Plaza

In 1971 the Flower Ladies moved their stands from the Franklin Street sidewalk into the NCNB Plaza passage and the alley next to the Intimate Bookshop.

St. Joseph CME sold Henry W. Baldwin's Broad Street land to Carrboro for a park

Henry W. Baldwin, a Black landowner in the Lloyd/Broad neighborhood, left his estate to St. Joseph CME Church. During the pastorate of Dr. L. Kenneth Bennett the church sold a tract on Broad Street to the Town of Carrboro for a park, which was named Baldwin Park in his honor.

Northside's Black population falls by about 40 percent

Between 1980 and 2010 Northside's Black population fell by roughly 40 percent as investors bought homes and converted or replaced them as student rentals; over the same period the share of university workers living 10 or more miles away rose above 60 percent.

Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

Chapel Hill enacts the Northside neighborhood conservation district

After residents asked for protection from student-rental conversions, the council enacted the town's first neighborhood conservation district, a zoning overlay limiting house size and height in Northside. An advisory committee drafted it through 2003 before a January 21, 2004 public hearing.

Chapel Hill enacts the Pine Knolls neighborhood conservation district

The council voted 9-0 to adopt Ordinance O-7 creating the Pine Knolls district, which bans new duplexes, caps floor area at 2,500 square feet and reduces front-yard parking. The Greenwood and Kings Mill/Morgan Creek districts were adopted the same night.

St. Joseph CME Church and UNC begin the Northside oral history partnership

Rev. Troy Harrison and UNC professor Della Pollock began collecting oral histories in Northside, the project that grew into the Marian Cheek Jackson Center.

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

Marian Cheek Jackson Center opens at St. Joseph CME Church

The Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Saving and Making History held its ribbon cutting on the second floor of the H.W. Baldwin Fellowship Hall at St. Joseph C.M.E. Church. It is named for Marian Cheek Jackson, the church historian and lifelong Pine Knolls resident.

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

The Greenbridge condominium towers topped out on West Rosemary Street

The 10-story and 7-story Greenbridge towers, with 98 condominium units, rose on the former Black business block that had held the Mason Motel. Northside residents opposed the project in an open letter, and restaurant owner Mildred "Mama Dip" Council said rising property values threatened her business.

People: Mildred Council

Council freezes building in Northside and Pine Knolls for six months

The council voted 7-0 for a six-month development moratorium in Northside and Pine Knolls, backdated to May 23, 2011, while a community plan was drafted. Jackson Center staff helped organize residents in support.

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board decides to build a new Northside Elementary on the old school's site

The board announced a new elementary school on the grounds of the Northside school that had closed in 1966, to carry the Northside name. Black families in the Northside neighborhood, whose children had been bused to other schools for decades, welcomed it as a return of their school.

Part of Historic Black neighborhoods of Chapel Hill and Carrboro · 55 events

Subject: Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · Northside School

Council adopts the Northside and Pine Knolls community plan

The council approved three resolutions under the plan, amending both conservation districts with building rules effective February 1, 2012 and a four-vehicle-per-lot parking limit effective September 1, 2012.

A new Northside Elementary opened on the old Training School grounds

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools opened a new Northside Elementary on the former Orange County Training School site. In 2012 neighbors had rallied to make sure the new school kept the Northside name.

Subject: Orange County Training School / Lincoln High School · Chapel Hill and Carrboro city schools · Northside School

Ethel Fuller Neville dies at 99 in the stone house on Cobb Street

Ethel Fuller Neville, widowed in 1960, lived at 107 Cobb Street until her death in 2013 at 99. Her five children all took part in the local civil rights movement, and son Calvin became a stonemason trained by the Campbells. The house stood mostly empty afterward.

Subject: Jeter and Ethel Neville House

UNC, Self-Help, the Jackson Center and the town launch the Northside neighborhood initiative

UNC-Chapel Hill committed a $3 million, 10-year, no-interest loan to Self-Help to buy Northside homes as they came on the market and hold them in a land bank for affordable resale or rental. The Jackson Center and the Town of Chapel Hill were partners.

People: Mark Kleinschmidt · Carol L. Folt

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

A stone gateway honoring Northside's freedom fighters was opened at Rosemary and Roberson streets

The gateway of Chatham stone carries eight black granite slabs with civil rights images and quotations from oral history interviews. It was opened with a ribbon cutting at the first Northside Festival, as the Jackson Center renamed its annual celebration.

People: Hilliard Caldwell

Subject: Marian Cheek Jackson Center

Carrboro created a zoning overlay district to protect the Lloyd-Broad neighborhood

At residents' request the Board of Aldermen set square-footage and parking limits and a cap of four unrelated occupants per household for the historically African American neighborhood, which had seen more student rentals and larger replacement houses. New building had to comply at once and existing houses were given three years.

People: Lydia Lavelle

EMPOWERment broke ground on PEACH apartments at the former Pine Knolls Community Center

The nonprofit began building 10 debt-free apartments for households earning 30 percent or less of area median income at 107 Johnson Street, where Ted Parrish had run the independent Pine Knolls Community Center. It had raised $3.5 million for the project.

Part of Preserving affordable housing · 30 events