A Road to the Past

Southeast corner of East Lawson and South Alston streets in Durham North Carolina Central University is the historically black university in Durham, NC. Yes, there is another higher education school in Durham. It is a well-regarded school for a long time, though some policies had unintended consequences. I'll go a little bit into that, but for now, some quick facts about NC Central! Founded: 1909 (but some places on campus and on their website list the founding in 1910) Colors: Maroon and Grey Mascot: Eagles Athletics: NCAA Division 1-AA (yes, I still call it that. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, this is the D1 that has a champion determined with a traditional draw of 24 teams) Students: 6,2585 undergraduates, 1,801 graduates Academics: 78 degrees offered across bachelor's, associates, master's/first professional, and doctoral programs (with a well-regarded law school in NC) For this, I will refer to a couple of book and j...

Just north of the northwest corner at South Wilmington and East Morgan in downtown Raleigh Y'all. Get ready for another really short post! The North Carolina Pharmaceutical Association. It's a professional organization for pharmacists in North Carolina, and now known as the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists. But way back when, it was established as the NCPA in 1880, as response to the NC Medical Society. See, what happened was that State Medical Board, as the Legislature was working on pharmaceutical regulation  (page 14), decided to be like "Let the State Legislature handle qualifications".  Context: the North Carolina Medical Board was established about 20 years ago to regulate and license qualified doctors, but no such body existed for pharmacists at this point. So what the Medical Board (i.e., doctors) was basically doing was like "Eh, it'll be fine, let the Legislature handle it. We don't know much about the pharmacists/pharmacy indust...

At the southwest corner of Hillsborough and Dawson in Downtown Raleigh L. O'B. Branch. Full name: Lawrence O'Bryan Branch. Also not one of my best pictures (granted, it was definitely one of the first pictures I took when I initially conceived the idea for this blog). Anyways, Branch was born on November 28, 1820, in Enfield, North Carolina, the youngest of six children. I initially thought he was a bit of an obscure character, as I couldn't find a lot of online-based sources discussing his biography. But I was wrong! This post ended up being pretty fun to research! However, I'll be using some book sources to support my discussion, and they are cited as the following: The Battle of Hanover Court House: Turning Point of the Peninsula Campaign, May 27, 1862 , by Michael C. Hardy Letters of Lawrence O'Bryan Branch , edited by A.R. Newsome (when I cite the pages for this one, it's the page number of the larger journal, not of this specific article) The Publ...

Near the southeastern corner at the intersection of  Churton Street and Margaret Lane, Hillsborough, NC Billy Strayhorn! The cool this about this blog is that I discover things I never knew, even about the area I grew up in for years. This post is definitely one of those. It was enjoyable to write, because I got to listen to good jazz music while doing it😀 Billy Strayhorn ( Source ) Billy Strayhorn was born in Dayton, Ohio, on November 29, 1915, and he and his family moved to Pittsburgh shortly thereafter. So why did I find a sign on him here in Hillsborough, North Carolina, and not in Dayton, Ohio? Granted, I don't know whether a sign on him exists at all in Dayton, but I believe if I searched for one, I would find one. But we do know that his mother would send him to Hillsborough for extended visits with his grandmother here, as a way to protect him from his abusive father.  It was while he would be with his grandmother, who encouraged him to play on the keyboar...

West side of North Wilmington between East Edenton and New Bern Place in Downtown Raleigh Ok, so this may be my shortest post ever. My bad guys. The Experimental Railroad! It was a horse-drawn railroad created in 1833 mainly to move stone from a quarry to where the Capitol building now stands. The quarry was located 1.25 miles southeast of the sign, and according to a quick view of Google Maps, was located next to what is now the state's Correctional Institute for Women (makes sense, I think). It's considered one of the first railroads in operation in the state. it was not the first experimental one created; that honor goes to an experimental railroad that the NCGA chartered in 1830 across many railroads including the Fayetteville Rail Road Company. That railroad went from Fayetteville to Campbellton further up the Cape Fear River, and was also horse-drawn. Campbellton had joined with Crossed Creek to create Fayetteville in 1783 , so I don't know what Campbellton ...

Just south of the southwest corner of  West Jones and North McDowell streets in downtown Raleigh This is definitely a more somber post. The Eugenics Board was a state-sponsored group that discussed the sterilization of thousands of North Carolinians, either by their choice or coercion. The sign also states that they met after 1939 one block east of the sign. Looking around there with a modern map, I don't have a lot of locations worthy of such a meeting...except that the State Legislative Building is located nearby. Most likely that's where they met, but I can't access maps of Raleigh circa 1939, so I can't confidently confirm that this was the case. Reader, you're welcome to read no further, as I will elucidate on what policies instigated the Board's existence below. This is your warning; anything below the line may cause discomfort. But I personally believe that it must be said so people know and prevent such things from happening in the future (maybe ev...

So as you, my few readers, may have noticed, I just posted about Duke University of Durham, North Carolina. If you are from the Tobacco Road area, you are very familiar with the rivalry between Duke and UNC, which I discussed a bit on my very first post of this blog. Even if you aren't from the Chapel Hill-Durham area, you've heard of this rivalry, especially during basketball season. It's in the air we breathe around here. So without further ado, I bring you: ( Source ) THE UNC - DUKE RIVALRY ( Source ) [By the way, the color used to highlight UNC is the WRONG color. Technically, the blue used for Duke is also wrong, but they're more willing to use royal blue as "Duke blue". However, "Duke blue" is a different, darker shade of blue than royal blue. Fun fact.] So the first matchup between the two schools happened in basketball on January 24, 1920 . That's all that started it. That, and the fact that there two distinctly diffe...

Duke University - west corner of Campus Drive, the main drive entrance to East Campus Ahh...Duke University. THAT school. All I have to say is GTHD! GO HEELS! Alright, enough of rivalry. On to the point of this post. BTW, long one ahead: there's a lot towards this one. Source: Duke University Wikipedia Page Duke University is in Durham, North Carolina. It's home to the Blue Devils, Eruditio et Religio, a championship Division 1 men's basketball team (which I hate to admit sometimes), and a damn good education. It's private, so unlike the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (go Heels, y'all), it has more out-of-state students than UNC. Which isn't a good or bad thing; it's just what it is. Beautiful campus though! Da Blue Devils...ew ( Source ) While the sign mentions Trinity College, its very first incarnation was a subscription school founded by a group of Methodist and Quaker families in 1838 (sidenote - subscription...

"Journey of Reconciliation" - Freedom Riders, SE Corner of Columbia St. and Rosemary St., Chapel Hill, NC One of our biggest events in recent history (as in within our parents' lifetimes) was the enactment of the Civil Rights Act in 1965. It was, back then, a pretty huge piece of legislation, both in scope and controversy; almost in similar ways to how the Affordable Care Act has affected the economy and the health industry. But there were several events that had led up to that one moment where President Lyndon B. Johnson had signed the bill into law. All sorts of groups conducted sit-in campaigns, non-violence movements, and pushed the issue forward in the South, where legal racism and segregation were most pervasive. But before all of this, there was the "Journey of Reconciliation." The Journey of Reconciliation was, what many argued, a prototype . It aimed to test the amount of racial segregation in the South, using the Upper South as its first step int...

On the SW corner of the traffic circle where Pullen Rd. intersects with Hillsborough Rd. It's near their belltower at the same point of the intersection. North Carolina State University in Raleigh is a large state university in Raleigh, NC. Their students and alumni bleed red and cheer for the Wolfpack. As a Tar Heel, I'm kind of *meh* about it; though they've had teams in football and basketball that have raised their rivalry profile, their matchups against Carolina don't garner the same enthusiasm from Tar Heels. But I will save that for later in the post. Right now, their famous NCS logo is colored red in honor of the state bird, the Cardinal. The block S has been used in variation since 1890, but it's design as seen below was first used in 2006. The Wolfpack was first adopted as its nickname and mascot in 1921, but names such as the Techs, the Aggies, and the Red Terror have been used prior to that adoption. It is said that the Wolfpack adoption was from a ...