As I drove along the Black River, I thought about the history of Sampson County's once legendary wild blueberries. Long before the country's first blueberry farm was established, the county's wild blueberries were famous as far away as New York City and Boston. Locals called them "huckleberries." In the rest of the world, they were known as the "Sampson blues."
Love in the Archives
Remembering Betty Town
One day I hope that I will know more about Betty Town, a free African American community that white raiders destroyed just before the Civil War to make way for the founding of Aurora, North Carolina.
The Town Where Ella Baker Grew Up
In these days when we seem to have forgotten who we are, and what is best within us, I have found myself thinking often about the legendary civil rights activist Ella Baker and a spring day two years ago when I visited Littleton, the small town in Halifax County, N.C., where she grew up.
Bass Player Willie Weeks Comes Home
Taking the back way home from Wilmington, I drove through the little town of Salemburg-- and that's when I saw the mural: the legendary bass player Willie Weeks, bigger than life.
“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 Lake of Hell
The recently discovered slave narrative by John Swanson Jacobs is breathtaking. I do not think I can describe how deeply it touched me, or how profoundly it changed the way that I see some of the places on the North Carolina coast that I have known all my life.
“Darling We Miss Thee”: The Children’s Graves at the Old Smithville Burying Ground
Last summer Laura and I visited the Old Smithville Burying Ground, a lovely old cemetery in Southport, N.C. We walked among the graves of those lost at sea, but they are not the ones I remember now.
A Place Called Oyster Creek
Many years ago, there used to be a little settlement called Oyster Creek down on the north side of the Newport River, not far from my family’s homeplace. My grandmother’s neighbor Beatrice Mason— we called her “Miss Beadie”—told me about it long ago.
The Best Meal Ever (for Mother’s Day)
"We always ate on the front porch, her in the swing, me in a rocker, a little table between us, and we watched the cars go by on 101 while she told me stories about growing up in that house."
“Cast on shore, at a place called Ocracock”: Mariners’ Accounts of Storms and Shipwrecks in the Collections of the Portsmouth Athenaeum, 1804-1817
On a stormy day last fall, I visited the Portsmouth Athenaeum, a venerable old library in Portsmouth, N.H., in search of old manuscripts on the maritime history of the North Carolina coast.
Our Coastal Heritage: Past, Present, and Future
This was my keynote address at the North Carolina Coastal Federation's "Coastal Summit" in Raleigh, N.C., April 8, 2025.
Reading Shakespeare Down East
I think I just wanted us to remember that, once upon a time, teachers were revered, their knowledge treasured, and schools were not treated like the enemy the way they are now, and that it was once considered a noble and honorable thing to bring light and tenderness and love into the world.
“The Beach is Lined with Crab Camps”
When the mailboat Violet arrived in Marshallberg, News & Observer correspondent C. J. Rivenbark discovered a whole village where life seemed to revolve around soft-shell crabbing.
A Journey to Sleepy Creek
In May of 1903, a newspaper reporter described his journey to a remote fishing village on the North Carolina coast.
Canning Sea Turtles, Marshallberg, N.C., 1938
In this photograph, we see workers slaughtering and canning sea turtles at a cannery in Marshallberg, N.C., in September 1938. (This is the 26th photograph in my photo-essay “Working Lives.”)
The Pamlico Shipyard, August 1944
This is the Pamlico Shipyard, Washington, N.C., August 1944. Built in the early part of 1943, the shipyard was located on the banks of the Pamlico River, at the site of an old gypsum mill.
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.
“It Was Like a Ballet”: Menhaden Fishermen at Work, 1947
In this photograph from the State Archives, we see a crew of menhaden fishermen at work in the waters off Morehead City and Beaufort, N.C., in 1947. They have tied their purse boats up against the mother boat after making a set and are beginning to load their catch onto the mother boat.
Lifting a Purse Seine onto a Net Reel, Beaufort, N.C., 1944
In this photograph, we see fishermen raising a purse seine onto a net reel at a menhaden factory in Beaufort, N.C., December 1944. They are standing in one of their crew's purse boats and another fisherman, or a factory hand, is turning the reel and lifting the seine onto the reel.
In the Galley of the Menhaden Boat Dewey
In the African American communities that were home to menhaden fishermen-- in Morehead City and Beaufort, in rural communities such as North River and Harlowe, and in fishing ports up and down the coast-- it seemed like everybody lost a loved one when the Parkins went down.
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.
The Wallace Fish Factory, 1939
This is the Charles S. Wallace Co.'s menhaden factory in Carteret County, N.C., 1939. The factory was located three miles west of Morehead City, on Bogue Sound, just opposite the site of the county hospital today.
The Nine O’Clock Whistle
One of this year's most highly anticipated new books on America's civil rights movement has just come out-- Willa Cofield, Cynthia Samuelson, and Mildred Sexton's The Nine O'Clock Whistle: Stories of the Freedom Struggle for Civil Rights in Enfield, North Carolina.
When Fishermen Harvested Seaweed: The Agar Industry in Beaufort, N.C. during the Second World War
This is the story of seaweed harvesting on the North Carolina coast during World War II and of a wartime crisis that led to the construction of a factory in Beaufort that turned that seaweed into agar, a jelly-like substance that was critical for making vaccines, treating infections, and diagnosing diseases.
Working Lives: The Herring Fisheries at Plymouth, N.C., 1939
This is a special group of photographs that were taken on the Roanoke River, just west of Plymouth, N.C., in the spring of 1939. Now preserved at the State Archives in Raleigh, they show the last days of two of the oldest herring seine fisheries on the North Carolina coast.
David Cecelski 