The Chronicle, Saturday, February 24, 1979-Page 13
OOT/
Of
Making It Through The Depression
oin
^instori- Saleni
“They used to tell me I was building a dream,
With peace and glory ahead . . .
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting for bread?”
The vanquished dreams of the Roaring 20s could be
summed up in the lines from “Buddy, Can You Spare a
Dime?” a popular song of the Depression era.
Bankers and other businessmen were leaping from
windows and the like. But for black people in America, it
was just another difficult time that had to be dealt with.
So it was in Winston-Salem. Times were not as hard as
in other localities for the simple reason that people
continued to smoke cigarettes. As long as they did, the
factories of the Camel City were ready to supply the
demand.
Prices were not as high. One could ride a bus for a
nickel. Buy a chicken for a quarter. But the poverty of the
Depression era by no means constituted the good old
days.
If you remember those days, we’d like to hear from
you about the sacrifices and struggles you and/or your
family faced.
The era of the Depression is hard for most younger
persons to conceive of. The idea of banks failing on a
massive scale and long breadlines is a bit farfetched to
anyone who did not live through it.
That observation reminds us of one of the letters which
have come in about the Roots series. A young student in
the public schools Writes that the series opened a world
of history he had not previously known existed.
It prompted him to wonder why he had not been
exposed to that history in the public schools. A big part
of the reason is the lack of source materials about much
of black history, a problem we have faced in our
research.
That lack makes us all the more grateful to people like
Charles T. Martin, who upon reading our notice about
the 59 black grocers in Winston-Salem, brought in a shot
of his uncle, J.C. Smith.
We found during his visit that the late Mr. Smith had
left a legacy which still exists — apartment buildings still
standing on Patterson Avenue and a chapel named in his
honor at the First Baptist Church.
Speaking of helpful people, we can’t ignore George
Booie, who this week brings his first hand memories of
some of the city’s most interesting characters and of the
park that he once managed.
eorge Black Celebrates 102nd
e Black turned 102
age last Thursday,
0 matter how many
thdays he adds to
j, much of what he
; is sure to outlast
liailt Winston-Salem
tally,” said the
hand-made brick-
in an interview at his
on Dellabrook Road
occasion of the
lirthday.
isn’t an idle boast,
centenarian can
hospital buildings,
factories, banks
ch of Old Salem as
he output from his
ds.
ist shows what a
man can do if you
1 half a chance,”
ck of his life of
shment. “I didn’t'
;o to school, but
ig 1 learned, I
le learned was the
the speed to make
I hand as fast as
I day. “I also
!o be a butcher,”
as an aside.
:orge Black saga in
Salem goes back
; father had to-
from Liberty to
•Salem to retrieve
vein trouble,
man named R.W.
cock hired my
Black related,
tayed two or three
to work and the man
kirn if he had two
ho could carry brick,
aid pay us 50 cents
father returned for
and his brother
never will forget
aid Black. “We
walked to Greensboro,
spent the night and then
walked over here. As we
entered town, we crossed
this railroad trestle. My
head started to swim. I had
to get down and crawl
across.”
Witnin weeks. Black’s
father had died and the two
boys were left to fend for
themselves. They contin
ued working at the
Hedgecock brickyard, gra
dually picking up the skill
of brickmaking.
Sometime in the early
1900s, Black said he asked
his brother, “Why can’t we
buy us an acre of ground
and make brick for our
selves and get what they
get and what we get too. ’ ’
“He told me, George,
we’re colored and folks
won’t buy from us on
account of us being colored.
Then we won’t havenothing
but brick.’ ”
I said, ’Well they’ll buy
from us if they can’t get it
anywhere else.”
Black recalls, “I wasn’t
satisfied.” He bought an
acre of land near the cur
rent site of the St.
Benedict’s school and
church on Hattie Avenue,
built a mudmill and began
making bricks on the side.
“The man I was working
for got wind of it,” recalled
Black with a smile. “By
then, I had half-a-kiln
(50,000) of brick. Old man
Hine (of what had become
Hine and Hedgecock) came
and looked at it and was
really surprised.”
“He said, George Black,
brickmaking ain’t what you
think it is. I told him I
thought I had made enough
bricks to know what it is,
but if 1 didn’t, I said. I’ll
find out what it is.”
George Black and Daughter
It just so happened that a
kUn (100,000) of bricks
were needed for the con
struction of the nurses’
quarters at the City Hospi
tal (built in 1914). No one
was able to supply the
bricks but one George
Black.
“So I sold those bricks
and made more money off
that than I had ever made
in my life.”
From that start, the
Black brickyard grew to an
operation which employed
“at least 18” employees in
two brickyards. Black later
moved his operations from
Hattie Avenue to behind
his current home at 125
Dellabrook Road. ’ ’
Black himself does not
know all the buildings in
Winston-Salem constructed
with his brick. “People
would just come and pick
up a hundred thousand
bricks and you wouldn’t
know where they were
going to use it.”
His brick is in 15 banks in
the city, according to his
torian Louise Hamilton,
Baptist Hospital, the Salem
College Library, and some
of the city’s finest
mansions.
Black recalls his brick
being used in the R.J.
Reynolds plant at 5th and
Church sts. and in the
restoration of Old Salem.
In 1971, his craft was
the subject of a national
television show. Soon
thereafter, he was sent by
the U.S. Agency for Inter
national Development to
Guyana to teach brick-
haaking.
At the age of 102, George
Black has seen a multitude
of changes. When he first
walked into the city,
“There were just some
houses on Liberty Street
and that was about it.”
See Page 14
Class of 1933 of Atkins High School. A meeting of the
is scheduled for later this year.
Contestant Mozell Hairston is judged during a bathing suit contest at
the Robinhood Park during the late 1930s.
Black Communities Emerge
In the “shotguns” of Ragshake,
Bloomtown, the Pond and the other
black communities which had developed
in Winston-Salem by the 1930s, the
beginning of the Great Depression
meant hard times, but it wasn’t the end
of the world.
Mrs. Mary L. Fair remembers lay-offs
at the tobacco factory where she and her
husband worked. Other workers’ time
was cut back.
“My husband worked just three days
and made $9; I made $5,” she recalled.
“But food wasn’t high then,” Mrs.
Fair added. “A 24 lb. sack of flour only
cost 75 cents.”
The Fairs supplemented their income
by selling cosmetics on weekends and
by selling fish sandwiches and fried
apple pies to their co-workers for lunch.
Before going further, let us explain
what a “shotgun” is. A shotgun is a
small house with no rooms, so named
because a shotgun blast would travel
straight through it without interruption.
Although many blacks had built
themselves better homes, a lot of
families still lived in“shotguns”. By the
1930s, the black households had ga
thered in the following neighborhoods:
• Belview — below Sprague Street in
southern Winston-Salem.
• Bloomtown — near Cleveland Ave.
between 12th and 14th Sts.
• Columbian Heights — around Win
ston-Salem State.
• Happy Hill — at the current Happy
Hill Gardens.
• Liberty-Patterson — from the black
business district eastward.
• Monkey Bottom — on the site of
the current bus terminal.
• New Richmond — across Cleveland
Ave. between 7th and 9th Sts.
• The Pond — along North Trade
Street past 9th St.
• Ragshake — near the site of the
Merita bakery at 12th and Liberty
Streets.
• Silver Hill — behind the Reynolds
High School.
• West End — from Watkins Street
beyond the Interstate highway.
There was also a small neighborhood
called “Five Rows,” named because
there were two rows of five houses each,
near the current intersection of Reynol-
da Road and Silas Creek Parkway. Its
residents worked the farms on the
Reynolda estate.
Local historian Joseph Bradshaw says
there was also a group of black
Moravians who lived at the base of
Broad Street.
Despite the poverty which afflicted
most of those neighborhoods during the
Depression, the 30s stand out as the
period when two of the most enduring
institutions in the black community of
Winston-Salem were built — Atkins
High School and Kate B. Reynolds
Hospital.
The first high school for blacks had
begun in 1894 with the renovation of the
Depot Street School. It continued to
house high school students until 1923.
The Columbian Heights High School
began accepting students in 1917. By
1922, 10 classrooms had been added
and all black high school students
attended that facility.
Those facilities proved not to be
sufficient. In 1931, with funding from
the Rosenwald Fund and bonds from the
city of Winston-Salem, “The Winston-
Salem Negro High School” was built.
Although the school became Atkins
Senior High School at a later date, the
dedication program for the April 2, 1931
Ceremonies makes no mention of Simon
Green .^tkins, the then-veteran presi
dent of Winston-Salem State Teacher’s
College.
The opening of the school was hailed
by the black community. The new plant
had workshops, science labs, sewing
rooms, study halls and 27 classrooms on
a 30 acre site (including the 14th Street
Elementary School). It was the first
school building in the city built with a
structural steel frame.
There is a bit of a controversy about
who were its first graduates. After
dedication, students at Columbian
Heights were moved to the new school,
although were only a few weeks left.
The seniors who had spent most of
the year at Columbian Heights were
graduated from the new school. Howev
er, members of the class of 1932 claim
they are the first graduates of Atkins.
Also emerging in the community were
the black branches of the YMCA and
YWCA. The latter had gotten off to a
See Page 14