Allen Sidney was born a slave in the seaport of Edenton, North Carolina, in 1804. More than 50 years later, in 1856, he escaped from a steamboat on the Ohio River and followed the Underground Railroad to Canada. At the age of 90, he told the story of his life to a newspaper reporter.
In Their Own Words
The Day Mrs. N. F. Harper Sang “Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior”
Nearly twenty years ago, scholar and archivist Linda Simmons-Henry led an extraordinary oral history project with African American elders in Pamlico County, N.C.. What I found most unforgettable about the project's interviews, back then and still today, is how much they are a history of faith and the spirit.
Coda: Tobacco Harvest, Braswell Plantation, Battleboro, N.C., 1944
"The bottom line is, if my grandparents hadn't survived the hand that was dealt them, then I wouldn't be here. If they didn't have hope.... They had their children, and it was brave of them. They could have said, `No, no, no, no, no, I'm not bringing no children in this world!' . . . But they didn't. They said, we can do it. We'll be alright. We'll make it. And they fed them, and they bought them two pairs of shoes a year when they sold that tobacco, and they sent them to school...."
The History of Buckhead (In Honor of Ms. Mary Clayton Wyche Mintz)
The legendary teacher Mary Clayton Wyche Mintz died at her home in Hallsboro, N.C. this week, age 106. I am re-printing this story on the Waccamaw Siouan community of Buckhead in her honor.
Minnie Bruce Pratt in Fayetteville, 1975
The celebrated poet, feminist and LGBTQ+ activist Minnie Bruce Pratt passed away earlier this week at the age of 76. To honor her legacy, I’d like to share an excerpt from an oral history interview about her years in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1970s.
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.
Letters from Oivind’s Son
A 92-year-old gentleman in Chesapeake City, Maryland, recently sent me a wonderful message about his childhood memories of living on the North Carolina coast in the 1930s. His name is Mr. Harold Lee and when he was four years old he lived in a coastal village in Onslow County, N.C., that is no more.
“I Will Always Remember that Walk”
“One of the first things that I remember was my Pappy waking me up in the middle of the night, dressing me in the dark, all the time telling me to keep quiet. One of the twins hollered some and Pappy put his hand over its mouth to keep it quiet.
“An understanding between the slaves”– Wilmington, 1858
Wilmington, North Carolina, ca. 1858. A 12-year-old boy named William runs toward a camp of men, women and children that had fled slavery. "I had heard it told so often at my father's fireside that I knew almost directly where they were."
“O, what sweetness I feel”– New River, 1815
Francis Asbury, the first Methodist bishop in America, feels old and worn down tonight. He is sore from having ridden a gimpy nag all day through swamps and forests. His arthritic joints ache. His legs have swollen from tick and chigger bites. A chronic diarrhea has weakened him. "I die daily," he mutters to himself.
David Cecelski 