GREENSBORO, N.C. — After the Civil War, a unique community in Greensboro was created. Warnersville, the city’s first planned African-American community, was a catalyst for black land and business owners.
James Griffin, a Warnersville native, remembers a time before redevelopment swept his close-knit neighborhood. But, like many cities in the 1960s, Greensboro was expanding highways and roadways and cutting through neighborhoods in the process.
“My grandfather had a huge house and they tore down his house and he had to move down the street,” Griffin said. “I was excited about it. But I think of how my mother and them thought about it — they thought that it was coming to an end basically.”
Some people were kicked out of their homes.
“A number of the houses were determined to be sort of not fit,” said Jon Zachmon, curator of collections at Greensboro History Museum. “And so they were razed or torn down. And that was a huge loss for the community.”
Long before that, in the late 1860s, Warnersville was full of promise when Yardley Warner, a quaker from Pennsylvania, purchased the land. The neighborhood was recognized for its success and traditional roots.
“This is where freed slaves were able to become landowners and build families, communities, businesses,” Shiloh Baptist Church Rev. Steve Allen said.
They even had their own all-black school, J.C. Price, until the neighborhood lost that symbol of pride during redevelopment.
However, Griffin said the heart of the community will remain as it once was.
“You still know your neighbors. You know your neighbors on this street. You know your neighbors on the next street. So, people work together, they look out for each other and it’s still like that today,” he said.