“Freedom seekers used this river,” says Leesa Jones, executive director of the Washington Waterfront Underground Railroad Museum.
Black History Month
Our coast’s people: Last daughter of Davis Ridge
Historian David Cecelski shares the story of Nannie Davis Ward, who grew up at the now-uninhabited Davis Ridge in Down East Carteret County, and her description in an interview before her death of the remote community of formerly enslaved watermen and island women.
Community races against time to restore dilapidated church
Half of the $1 million needed has been raised to restore the mid-1800s Reaves Chapel, which has fallen into disrepair over the last 15 years since a congregation last worshipped within its walls.
New Bern’s African American community focus of event
Dr. Erroll L. Royal will share highlights during a virtual presentation Feb. 17 on his most recent book, “Traces of Places and Faces of African Americans from the New Bern Community.”
Beaufort’s Union Town Civil War marker unveiling set
The newly installed Civil War Trails marker on Mulberry Street in Beaufort provides historical information about Union Town, a refugee camp built in 1862 by African Americans who fled enslavement to Union-occupied Beaufort.
Program on Cape Fear’s Black, faith-based communities set
Explore the legacy of Rev. Richard Keaton and the Black Missionary Movement in the Middle Cape Fear Region during the Feb. 18 program at the Pender County Library’s Burgaw location.
NASA’s ‘Human Computers’ exhibit at Albemarle museum
“When the Computer Wore a Skirt: NASA’s Human Computers” explores the history and personalities the film and book “Hidden Figures.”
‘They have got hold of the Bible’: Beaufort and the Civil War
The letters between an anti-slavery pastor and his daughter give a glimpse of Beaufort during the Civil War era, where escaped and liberated enslaved people could “come out of the shadow of slavery,” David Cecelski writes.
