This is the 21st and last photo-essay of my "Working Lives" series. It focuses on a migrant farmworkers camp in Aurora, a small town on the North Carolina coast that used to be called the "Potato Capital of the World." Every spring, with the arrival of the migrant harvest workers, Aurora's population doubled then doubled again.
Great Migrations
Remembering a Barbecue Legend: The Rev. Adam Scott of Goldsboro, N.C.
The Rev. Adam Scott was a Pentecostal Holiness minister born in Goldsboro, N.C., in 1890. He went on to become barbecue royalty. He was called a "barbecue artist" and the "Barbecue King" of Eastern North Carolina. In 1933, he threw a barbecue for Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House's Rose Garden, bless its dearly departed soul.
The Woman in the Lettuce Fields of Castle Hayne, 1943
They came there from a hundred places, as close as the Georgia piney woods, as far as Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas. Then, early in the spring, when there was no more work in South Florida's fields, some of them came to the lettuce fields of Castle Hayne. (Part 14 of my "Working Lives" series.)
“I Cannot Write My Life”
Mbaye Lo and Carl W. Ernst's new book "I Cannot Write My Life" reveals the Islamic and Arabic literary traditions of West Africa that shaped Omar ibn Said, the Muslim scholar who was enslaved on the North Carolina coast from 1807 until his death in 1863.
The Menhaden Boat C. P. Dey
In this unfortunately rather blemished photograph, we see the menhaden fishing boat C. P. Dey at the docks in Morehead City, N.C., looking well-used but tidy, her purse boats in good view, November 1942.
A Forgotten People: Bohemian Oyster Shuckers on the North Carolina Coast, 1890-1914
From 1890 to at least 1914, thousands of Central and Eastern European immigrants worked in oyster canneries on the North Carolina coast. Typically recruited in Baltimore, they all came to be known as “Bohemians,” though they had actually immigrated to the United States from many different parts of Europe.
A Shoebox Full of Chicken and Biscuits
At the Othmer Library in Brooklyn, N.Y., I found a story that I thought spoke in a moving way to the history of Eastern North Carolina and the Great Migration-- and especially to the historic ties between the region's African American communities and New York City.
The Italian Workers: The Life and Times of the Immigrants who Built North Carolina’s Railroads
In 1920 an Italian immigrant named James Torsigno-- a railroad construction worker-- was unjustly accused of murder in Belhaven, N.C.. His case opened a rare window into the world of the thousands of Italian immigrant laborers that were building railroads in North Carolina in the early 20th century.
The Migrants in the Potato Fields (New Version)
I discovered another forgotten chapter in eastern North Carolina's history while I was exploring the Farm Security Administration (FSA)'s photographs at the Library of Congress-- it is a story about the migrant farm laborers that worked in Camden, Currituck and Pasquotank counties in the last years of the Great Depression.
The Magic Lantern Man
In 1893 and 1894, a young African American showman named I. P. Hatch criss-crossed the North Carolina coast and beyond. Using a device called a stereopticon, he shared images of the world's wonders with overflowing crowds from New England to Florida.
The Griot of Topsail Sound
Curtis Hardison’s new book Griot: The Evolution of Edgecombe tells the story of a little African American community near Topsail Island called Edgecombe. Hardison grew up there, and his book chronicles his extraordinary journey in search of the community’s roots.
The Lighters at Clubfoot Creek
My friend Betty Motes recently told me a story about a flotilla of boatmen and their families that used to come from the shipyards of Camden, New Jersey, and spend their winters on Clubfoot Creek.
The Mullet Fishermen of Punta Gorda
The first fisherman from Carteret County, N.C., that I found in Punta Gorda, Florida, was a man named John C. Lewis. He was born in Beaufort in 1847 and he was the son of Anson and Irene Lewis, outfitters of sailing ships.
The Mullet Fishermen: A Journey from Carteret County, N.C. to Cortez, Florida
In the 1880s fishermen began to leave Carteret County, N.C., and go to the mullet fishing grounds of Southwest Florida, where they made new homes in places such as Cortez and Punta Gorda.
“All Roads Lead Back to North Carolina”
Whether they were in New York City, Boston or Hartford, the Sons and Daughters of North Carolina kept a close eye on what was happening back home in the Tar Heel State.
Emancipation Day At Mother Zion
On January 12, 1934, the New York City chapter of the Sons and Daughters of North Carolina held an Emancipation Day celebration at Mother AME Zion Church in Harlem, one of the most historic churches in America.
Worcester, Mass., 1888: The Sons and Daughters of North Carolina (Part 3)
While doing research on her family’s history, Yvette Porter Moore discovered that her ancestors had organized a chapter of the Sons and Daughters of North Carolina in Worcester, Mass., in the fall of 1888.
The Sons and Daughters of North Carolina II
The second time that the Sons and Daughters of North Carolina made national headlines was the 1st of December, 1898, when they gathered at Association Hall in Brooklyn, N.Y., to protest the Wilmington, N.C., massacre and coup d’etat of 1898.
The Sons and Daughters of North Carolina
The first time that the Sons and Daughters of North Carolina attracted national attention was a winter night in Brooklyn, New York, in 1897. Composed of African American migrants who had left North Carolina, the group was holding a memorial service in honor of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Hard Times: Voices from the Great Depression on the North Carolina Coast
At the Southern Historical Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill, I found a remarkable collection of oral history interviews from the North Carolina coast during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Building Fort Bragg II: The Puerto Rican Migrant Workers of 1918
Today I want to look at the story of Puerto Rican construction workers that helped to build Fort Bragg at the end of WW1. Theirs is a little-known tale of war, colonialism and migration, and it is one set against the background of the country's last deadly pandemic, the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918-19.
The Voyage to Bayou Lafourche
Now preserved at the National Archives, a slave manifest indicates that 66 of Augustin Pugh's slaves from Bertie County, N.C., sailed on the brig Calypso out of Norfolk, Va., on April 3, 1819. They were bound for New Orleans, and more than half of them were ten years old or younger.
The Migrants in the Potato Fields
I discovered another forgotten chapter in eastern North Carolina's history while I was exploring the Farm Security Administration (FSA)'s photographs at the Library of Congress-- it is a story about the migrant farm workers that harvested the region's crops in the 1930s and '40s.
Building Fort Bragg: The Migrant Workers of 1940-41
This week I've been looking at another remarkable collection of historical photographs. Now preserved at the Library of Congress, they were taken by a documentary photographer named Jack Delano in the camps of the migrant construction workers that built Fort Bragg, N.C., one of the largest military installations in the world.
A Local History of Human Trafficking
This essay originated in discussions with Dr. Makini Chisolm-Straker and Katherine Chon on the history of human trafficking in the American South-- and especially in eastern North Carolina.
David Cecelski 