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Storyline

Historic Rogers Road neighborhood

The community itself, settled after emancipation.

In briefThe Rogers-Eubanks area grew from Black-owned farms and sawmills after emancipation, and in 1972 the county landfill was placed beside it. Residents organized through RENA and the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition from 2007, the landfill closed in 2013, and the neighborhood won a community center in 2014 and the sewer extension in 2019.

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1 work about Historic Rogers Road neighborhood is indexed here. 1 held at OCPL →

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The Rogers Road Community Center
The Rogers Road Community Center

In the chronology

Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 25 dated events in the chronology →

  1. The Hogan-Rogers House was built on the Hogan plantation on Purefoy Road The two-story frame house on Purefoy Road, on land now owned by St. Paul AME Church, dates to the 1840s or 1850s; the 1992 township survey recorded it as the Lloyd-Rogers House at 1612 Purefoy Road, the only house in the township on a raised basement. A fireplace in that basement led the Preservation Society's director to conclude that enslaved people on the Hogan plantation probably lived and worked there. INDY Week reported in 2012 that many Rogers-Eubanks residents descend from people held on the plantation. Place: Purefoy Road, Chapel Hill · Also mentions: St. Paul AME ChurchINDY Week: Once a home to slaves, the Hogan-Rogers house could be demolished
  2. Black-owned family farms and sawmills made up the Rogers-Eubanks area By the late nineteenth century the area between Homestead and Eubanks roads, north of Carrboro and Chapel Hill, was a neighborhood of Black-owned family farms and sawmills set among forest. RENA and the Town of Carrboro both date settlement of the wider area to the 1700s. Place: Rogers RoadRogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association: About Us
  3. David Caldwell's family bought a home on Rogers Road David Caldwell, later a RENA leader, said his family moved from Merritt Mill Road to Rogers Road when Black families got the chance to buy homes there. He recalled a farming neighborhood of about thirteen houses, with dirt roads and cornfields. People: David Caldwell Jr. Place: Rogers Road · Also named: David Caldwell · Also mentions: Merritt Mill RoadFrom the Rock Wall: David Caldwell on the history of environmental racism in the Rogers Road community
  4. Robert Campbell moves to Rogers Road as the county landfill is built beside it Campbell, who grew up in the Northside community of Chapel Hill, moved to Rogers Road in the early 1970s, as the Orange County landfill was going in next to the neighborhood. He later became president of the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association and of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP. People: Robert Campbell Place: Rogers Road, Chapel HillSearch the index · RENA Community Center: Staff
  5. Officials signed the landfill agreement that carried promises to the Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood RENA's chronology records that Chapel Hill Mayor Howard Lee, Mayor Robert Wells Jr. and county commission chairman H.D. Bennett signed the full landfill agreement. Residents remember Lee promising that their road would be paved and that the filled site would become a recreation center for them. People: Howard N. Lee Place: Orange County · Also named: Robert Wells Jr., H.D. BennettRENA Community Center: The Orange County Landfill
  6. Robert Campbell helps start Faith Tabernacle Oasis of Love International Church Campbell and his wife helped start Faith Tabernacle Oasis of Love International Church, where he was ordained in the 1980s. He has said his bishop's charge to the congregation to go beyond its own comfort turned him toward the landfill and the neighborhood's water. People: Robert Campbell Place: Rogers Road, Chapel HillSearch the index · Marian Cheek Jackson Center, From the Rock Wall: Min. Robert Campbell
  7. Robert Campbell petitioned Chapel Hill for bus service to the Rogers Road neighborhood Minister Robert Campbell asked the Chapel Hill council to extend free transit service to the Rogers Road community, noting that it lacked sidewalks and sewer service and that children walked along the landfill's heavy truck route. He suggested rerouting underused Airport Road buses. People: Robert Campbell Place: Rogers Road · Also mentions: Airport RoadTown of Chapel Hill: Agenda 3a(2), Petition re Transit Service to Rogers Rd. Community
  8. Carrboro formed the New Horizons task force for the Rogers Road area Carrboro created the New Horizons task force to serve residents of the Rogers Road area it was annexing. The town's Rogers Road sidewalk and bus stop project, begun in 2018, grew out of the task force's work. Place: CarrboroChapelboro: Carrboro Breaks Ground on Rogers Road Sidewalk Project
  9. Chapel Hill council took up how to carry out a Rogers Road small area plan Under a 2002 resolution adopted jointly by Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro, Chapel Hill had agreed to plan the residential area west of the Greene Tract around Rogers and Purefoy roads, including an affordable housing site. The manager recommended starting after four neighborhood conservation districts were finished, with the Planning Board leading. Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Greene TractTown of Chapel Hill: Agenda item 10, Rogers Road Small Area Plan Report
  10. Carrboro annexed subdivisions on the west side of Rogers Road Carrboro annexed six subdivisions north of Homestead Road, including Fox Meadow and Highlands, bringing part of the Rogers Road area inside town limits. In September 2004 the aldermen had voted 6 to 1 to go ahead even though the historic neighborhood had asked the two towns to move their annexation boundary so the community would not be split. People: Mark Chilton Place: Carrboro · Also mentions: HighlandsINDY Week: Carrboro residents, still smarting from annexation, protest new development
  11. Residents founded the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association About 85 households founded RENA as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, putting a long-running informal community alliance on a formal footing. RENA went on to organize the Coalition to End Environmental Racism and to run the neighborhood's community center. Place: Rogers RoadRogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association: About Us
  12. Rogers–Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism organizes Residents of the Rogers Road and Eubanks Road neighborhood formed the Rogers-Eubanks Coalition to End Environmental Racism in 2007. At the September 20, 2007 Assembly of Governments meeting, member Neloa Jones asked officials to drop the neighborhood as a transfer station site, end solid-waste operations there by November 2009, and provide water and sewer service. People: Robert Campbell Place: Countywide · Also named: Neloa Jones · Also mentions: Eubanks RoadThe Carrboro Citizen: County delays waste transfer station plan (September 27, 2007)
Show all 25 dated events
  1. St. Paul AME Church bought land on Rogers Road for a new church campus The Chapel Hill congregation bought more than 22 acres for a worship complex with a banquet hall, wellness center, daycare, senior and affordable housing, athletic fields and a cemetery. The land, at Rogers Road and Purefoy Drive, became the site of the planned St. Paul Village. Place: Rogers Road and Purefoy Drive, Chapel HillSt. Paul AME Church Chapel Hill: History
  2. David Caldwell retires as a sheriff's lieutenant to organize in Rogers Road full time Caldwell joined the sheriff's department in 1985 after returning to the area and retired as a lieutenant in 2008 to work full time on community and social justice work. He became project director and community organizer for the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association. People: David Caldwell Jr. Place: Orange CountySearch the index · RENA Community Center: Staff
  3. Chapel Hill council received the Rogers Road Small Area Plan Task Force's final report Council members Mark Kleinschmidt and Bill Strom presented the report, and the council voted 9 to 0 to send it to advisory boards, Carrboro, Orange County, OWASA and the city schools, with a joint public hearing planned for October 2009. Rev. Robert Campbell of RENA thanked the council for giving the community a voice. People: Robert Campbell, Mark Kleinschmidt Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Bill StromTown of Chapel Hill: Council minutes, March 16, 2009
  4. UNC's library exhibited Rogers Road family histories drawn from Emily Eidenier Pearce's book The exhibit We're All Family Here: Preserving Community Heritage in the Rogers Road Neighborhood of Chapel Hill introduced families who had shaped the area from the 1700s on. It was inspired by Pearce's 2009 history Rogers Road, which RENA presents as part of its History Project. Place: UNC University Library, Chapel Hill · Also named: Emily Eidenier PearceUNC University Library: We're All Family Here, Preserving Community Heritage in the Rogers Road Neighborhood of Chapel Hill
  5. RENA opened its first community center on Edgar Road Three years after incorporating as a nonprofit, the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association opened a small community center on Edgar Road so the neighborhood had a place of its own to gather and run programs. Place: Rogers-Eubanks neighborhoodRENA Community Center: About Us
  6. Neighbors form the Rogers Road Community Unity Board The Community Unity Board brought together leaders from every sub-neighborhood of Rogers-Eubanks, among them Historic Rogers Road, Billabong, TallyHo, Meadow Run, Phoenix Place and Sandberg, for continuing talks about the area's future. RENA and the Jackson Center reconvened it in 2015 for the planning work the three governments had asked for. People: David Caldwell Jr., Robert Campbell Place: Rogers Road, Chapel HillSearch the index · Orange County: Rogers Road, Mapping our Community's Future, May 2016
  7. Rogers Road landfill closes The landfill closed at noon on Saturday, June 29, 2013 after 41 years, with a ceremony at which Rogers Road residents symbolically locked the service entrance. The closure plan called for a synthetic cap covered with soil and vegetation, vented so that the county's methane recovery system, which feeds power to UNC buildings, could keep running. People: Robert Campbell Place: Chapel HillThe Daily Tar Heel: Orange County landfill to close this weekend
  8. Chapel Hill extended its extraterritorial jurisdiction over the Historic Rogers Road area Because none of the neighborhood lay inside Chapel Hill's limits, the town could not legally spend money on its sewer, so the council held a public hearing set for October 15, 2014 on bringing its part of the area under the town's extraterritorial jurisdiction. Afterward the neighborhood was split between Carrboro and Chapel Hill's ETJ. People: Robert Campbell Place: Rogers RoadDaily Tar Heel: Council sets Rogers Road hearing for next month
  9. RENA and the Jackson Center produced the Historic and Vibrant Rogers Road report The Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association and the Marian Cheek Jackson Center put together survey analysis and community feedback on the neighborhood's future. Two years later the same partners ran the planning process behind Mapping our Community's Future. Place: Rogers RoadMarian Cheek Jackson Center: MCJC Reports
  10. The county-funded Rogers Road Community Center opened at 101 Edgar Street Orange County commissioners awarded a $522,488 contract to Riggs-Harrod Builders of Durham on April 1, 2014 after a first round of bids came in at two to three times the authorized budget and the building was redesigned. The larger center, with a community room, kitchen, computer lab and outdoor courts, opened that December a short walk from RENA's 2010 building. Place: Rogers-Eubanks neighborhoodRENA Community Center: About Us
  11. RENA and the Jackson Center published the Rogers Road community plan commissioned by the three governments In July 2015 Orange County, Chapel Hill and Carrboro asked the Marian Cheek Jackson Center and RENA to run a community-first planning process as sewer design advanced. The resulting report, built from nine Unity Board sessions and two rounds of interviews, set four priorities for the neighborhood and became the reference document for the later zoning districts and Greene Tract resolutions. People: Robert Campbell, David Caldwell Jr. Place: Rogers-Eubanks neighborhood · Also mentions: Greene TractOrange County: Rogers Road, Mapping our Community's Future
  12. The Rogers Road sewer extension was placed in service OWASA put the extension into service on June 27, 2019 after the state accepted the as-built certification, ending a wait that residents traced to the 1972 landfill agreement. About 3.5 miles of sewer had been laid, and the neighborhood held a celebration at the community center on June 3. Individual owners still had to pay to connect their homes. People: Penny Rich Place: Rogers-Eubanks neighborhoodU.S. EPA: Resolution and Closure, EPA Complaint No. 13R-07-R4
  13. Pop-up vaccine clinic held at the Rogers Road Community Center The Orange County Health Department held a pop-up COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the Rogers Road Community Center for Hispanic and Asian American residents, many of whom do not speak English, after local volunteers asked for one and printed flyers in several languages. Place: Rogers Road Community Center, Chapel HillWRAL: Chapel Hill organization provides vaccine outreach for non-English-speaking community

Places in this history

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 2 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange, Orange County GIS, OpenStreetMap and a few other published sources named on each site’s page; town and community pins show approximate locations.

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Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Rogers Road

Pearce, Emily Eidenier · 2009

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.

Included because: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Rogers Road (Orange County, N.C.).

✓ Held at OCPL · 975.656 EID NC Cardinal UNC Durham Chapel Hill PL CH Historical Society

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Related themes

Black Life & Civil Rights →Eno & Environment →Everyday Life & Traditions →Freedom, schools, and Black community-building after emancipation →Housing, Neighborhoods & Displacement →Orange County landfill campaign →

Picture: The Rogers Road Community Center. CC0. Photograph by Mx. Granger; via Wikimedia Commons

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