Henry Guthrie's West Franklin Street property and Black-owned businesses, 1918–1924
Black-owned businesses grew up around West Franklin Street, where Black families were settling, while Henry "Buddy" Guthrie's property there suffered fire and debt. About 1918 Guthrie opened a picture house. In October 1923 the Black merchant Van Nunn finished a new store on Rosemary Street. That November fire destroyed Guthrie's garage behind the theatre for Black patrons, with four automobiles of Black residents, the second fire on his property in that block in about a month, the News said. On July 4, 1924 the Standard, a movie house owned by and run for Black residents, opened on West Franklin Street. That month a trustee advertised the Guthries' land for sale after they fell behind on the note.
About 1918 Henry "Buddy" Guthrie opened a picture house on West Franklin Street just west of Graham Street, in the blocks where Black families were settling. In October 1923 Van Nunn, a Black merchant whom the News called the most progressive Black citizen of Chapel Hill, finished a new store on Rosemary Street and moved into it. About 4 a.m. on November 20, 1923, fire destroyed the Caldwell garage behind the moving-picture theatre for Black patrons on West Franklin Street, along with four nearly new automobiles belonging to Black residents, and firemen could only save the buildings nearby. The frame garage belonged to Guthrie, and the News said it was the second fire on his property in that block in about a month. On July 4, 1924 the Standard, a movie house owned by and run for Black residents, opened on West Franklin Street with two crowded shows; its owners were tailor Durward O'Kelly, builder Charlie Brooks and brick mason Jesse Kirkland. On July 15 a trustee advertised for sale on August 16 the Franklin Street land of Henry and Matilda Guthrie, which held two houses, a building used as a moving-picture house, two stores and a garage. The Guthries had bought it from Mary McCauley Lindsay and D. McCauley and fallen behind on the note.
Fire destroys the Caldwell garage and four automobiles on West Franklin StreetFire broke out about 4 a.m. on Tuesday, November 20, 1923, and destroyed the Caldwell garage behind the moving-picture theatre for Black patrons on West Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, along with four nearly new automobiles belonging to Black residents. Firemen could only save the buildings nearby. The frame garage belonged to Henry Guthrie, and the News said it was the second fire on his property in that block in about a month, after one that burned a house and part of another.Place: West Franklin Street, behind the moving-picture theatre, Chapel Hill · Also named: Henry GuthrieThe News (Chapel Hill), November 22, 1923, p. 1
No indexed work is about this storyline itself yet. These are the most widely held histories of the theme it is filed under, so they may not discuss it. Follow a link to find a copy or view the material.
Sydney Nathans's biography of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from Orange County who escaped to the North in the mid nineteenth century and spent the following decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working to free the family she had left behind. Chapter titles trace her flight, her years among Northern friends, a rescue plot, a long silence, and the reunion that gives the book its close. Published 2012 by Harvard University Press, 330 pages with 20 pages of plates, illustrations and maps.
Art Chansky's 2016 account of Dean Smith, Charlie Scott and the years that changed Chapel Hill as a Southern college town. Scott was the first Black scholarship player in the Carolina basketball program. Topics include civil rights, racism in sports and the university's twentieth-century history.
John Ehle's account of the civil rights demonstrations in Chapel Hill in 1963 and 1964 and the young people who led them, first published by Harper & Row in 1965. This reprint from Lewisville, North Carolina adds an afterword by Wayne King. Civil rights and race relations in Chapel Hill are its subjects. 340 pages with illustrations and portraits.
To Drink from the Well: The Struggle for Racial Equality at the Nation’s Oldest University
Kapur, Geeta · 2021
Geeta Kapur's history of race at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from the enslaved labor that built the campus through desegregation and the Black student protests that followed. Twelve chapters, with a foreword by William Barber II, move from the founding era and the Great Depression controversies to the state's response to integration and the turmoil of later decades; North Carolina Central University also figures. Published 2021 by Blair in Durham.
Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina
Pleasants, Julian M.; Burns, Augustus M., III · 1990 · UNC Press
Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns III on the 1950 Democratic Senate primary in North Carolina, in which Frank Porter Graham, the former president of the University of North Carolina, lost to Willis Smith after a campaign marked by race-baiting. Primaries, elections and race relations in the state are its subjects. Published by UNC Press in 1990, 356 pages with illustrations.
Collected first-hand and second-hand stories from the Eno River valley as told from the standpoint of African Americans and Native people who have lived along the river in Orange and Durham counties, from prehistory to the present day. Issued by the Eno River Association in Durham as volume 10, number 2 of the Eno Journal, 2021, 106 pages with illustrations.
The Impact of Slavery on the Education of Blacks in Orange County, North Carolina 1619-1970
Moore, Rosetta Austin · 2015
Rosetta Austin Moore's survey of Black education in Orange County from the colonial era to 1970, in a revised edition published in 2015 through Lulu in Morrisville. After chapters on slavery nationally and on schooling for enslaved people in North Carolina, the book turns to the county: its formation, the growth of its schools, the arrival of free public schooling for all, and the schools and African American educators of the twentieth century. 265 pages with maps, portraits and facsimiles.
Sydney Nathans's history of a Black community in Hale County, Alabama, whose founders were enslaved people sent there before the Civil War from the Cameron family's plantations in Orange County, North Carolina. Instead of following the Great Migration out of the South, this group stayed, moved from bondage to owning the land they had worked, and held onto it across generations. Published 2017, 342 pages with plates and maps; this is the e-book edition.
African Americans of Durham and Orange counties : an oral history
Bolduc, Jean · 2016 · The History Press
Jean Bolduc's collection of oral history interviews with Black residents of Durham and Orange counties, published by The History Press in 2016, 125 pages with photographs and portraits. The narrators are the poet Jaki Shelton Green, civil rights lawyer Floyd McKissick, Walter Jackson, Nate Davis, Brenda Stephens, Diane Wright, Jackie Wagstaff and Michelle Johnson, and a closing chapter deals with the Ku Klux Klan. The interviews document Black life and race relations in the two counties across the twentieth century.
Sitting In and Speaking Out: Student Movements in the American South, 1960-1970
Turner, Jeffrey A. · 2010 · The University of Georgia Press
Jeffrey A. Turner's study of student activism on Southern campuses between 1960 and 1970, arguing that the region's own movement has been overshadowed by attention to national groups such as SDS. Nine chapters move from the 1960 sit-ins through white students and desegregation, the rise of student power, Black Power on Black and white campuses, and the war's effect on the region. Chapel Hill is among the campuses treated. Published 2010, 366 pages, online edition.
Emily Eidenier Pearce's history of Rogers Road, the historically African American neighborhood on the edge of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and of what happened to it after Orange County opened its landfill next door in 1972. Drawing on interviews with residents, the book records the neighborhood's origins, family life, churches and customs, and then the environmental and social burdens of decades beside the landfill. Privately issued in 2009, 298 pages with illustrations, maps and portraits.
A Traitor and a Scoundrel: Benjamin Hedrick and the Cost of Dissent
Smith, Michael Thomas · 2003 · University of Delaware Press ; London : Associated University Presses
Michael Thomas Smith's biography of Benjamin Sherwood Hedrick, the University of North Carolina chemistry professor dismissed in 1856 after he declared support for the antislavery presidential candidate John C. Fremont. Published by University of Delaware Press in 2003, 216 pages with illustrations. Topics include abolitionists and dissenters in North Carolina, the antislavery movement in the state, and the university's biography before 1962.
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Friends of the Orange County Public Library. “Henry Guthrie's West Franklin Street property and Black-owned businesses, 1918–1924.” Orange County Indexed, https://focplnc.org/orange-county-books/storylines/guthrie-west-franklin-storyline-1918/. Accessed October 22, 2026.
