A city known historically for its ethnic diversity, Fayetteville has truly served as a leader and model in the state by providing opportunity to the African-American community. During the South's antebellum era, freedmen and local slaves established a strong black identity in the city, one that would grow cosmopolitan and evolve over the decades, surviving wars, depressions, and social inequalities. This work, with over 200 images, relates the black contribution to the city, featuring its earliest civic leaders, some of its older schools, such as Fayetteville State University, and a few of its outstanding citizens.
Author and historian Fred Whitted has compiled a wonderful visual record of the African-American experience and achievements in Fayetteville and Cumberland County, and his work celebrates, in word and image, the many families, churches, schools, businesses, and individuals that worked so diligently and persistently over the past 150 years to create a city distinctive and special in the Tar Heel State.