Aug 25

Aug 25 Olde Kinston Gazette: Black business thrived in the early 20th century

Originally published: August 1988

Retyped by: Norma-Jean Miller

Just 39 years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, with the “slave experience” still fresh in the memories of black Kinstonians, a number of black businesses sprang up with tenacity and industry, creating three all black business districts in Kinston.

These districts were able to survive even the devastating hardships of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

There are no records verifying the existence of black businesses before 1900 because the records of many Kinston businesses, both black and white, were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1895.

However, records show the existence of a black bank in 1901 - the Dime Bank at 211 South Queen Street which was owned and operated by Charles Dunn. The section of Queen Street surrounding the Dime Bank became Kinston’s first all-black business district.

Sanborn Fire Insurance maps 1901-1930 show that the 200 block of South Queen Street was filled with a variety of businesses - the Hotel Charles, grocery stores, the Dime Bank and Hotel Murphy.

Nearby in the 300 block of South Queen Street was bakery, a grocery store, two cleaners, three barber shops, a druggist , and several “eating houses.”

In the 400 block was Hotel Williams, a shoemaker and a black owned theater, the Palace Theater at 410 South Queen Street.

Through the years, the number of black businesses increased. Tower Hill Road and North Street prospered with similar businesses and had a physician and a dentist.

The businesses that sprung up around Charles Dunn’s bank made South Queen Street the most productive of the three black business districts. Dunn became Kinston’s most prominent black entrepreneur in the early days. Within the building that housed his bank he also ran a hotel and a taxi service.

Black businesses were often consolidated in one place. The Hotel Williams, for example, was first located above the Palace Theater, but business grew until it had to move to a larger building.

Other prominent black entrepreneurs included Peter R. Borden and J.C. Hargett.

The South Queen Street district thrived from 1901 through the 1940s. Fire insurance maps showed the presence of the same number of businesses after the Great Depression as before the crash.

At a time when other businesses were failing, the black businesses thrived. Interviews with old timers revealed that the reason for this survival was the independent nature of the entrepreneurs an d their customers.

Those who ran the 20 grocery stores grew many of their own staple goods and canned and preserved them rather than relying on wholesale dealers.

Also, black did not generally rely on banks all that much. They kept the bulk of their money at home. And while other banks were failing, the black banks did not appear to be as adversely affected because they were outside the “mainstream of the banking business.”

However, the Dime Bank, which held out longer than most, finally did succumb to the affects of the Great Depression. It was the last of three black banks. The other two, the People’s Bank and Holloway, Murphy and Company, were short-lived.

Black enterprises also thrived in the infamous “Sugar Hill” district. Three black madams who lived at 108, 110 and 112 West Shine Street won “glamorous notoriety” and wealth because of their “manner of handling clients.”

During the regular cotton markets, a great number of black farmers are said to have come to town and checked in at one of the three black hotels.

One story has it that once the clients took their horses to the livery stable, which was black owned and operated, they would go to visit the madams. Located just around the corner from the South Queen Street business district, the madams would refer the black farmers to other black businesses.

The three black districts began to decline during the 1950s. By the 1970s they gradually faded away. People say two basic problems contributed to the decline.

In many cases, when a proprietor died, relatives failed to continue the business.

Also, the general recovery from the Great Depression by white merchants on North Queen Street and the attractiveness of their businesses drew many black patrons away from the black businesses that still remained. This exodus of clientele left the last survivors on South Queen Street in financial chaos.

Original Editor’s Notes:

Information for this story was compiled by Kenneth E. Hill of Raleigh, a former employee of the Kinston Planning and Research Department. The original article, provided by Herritage Place at Lenoir Community College, first appeared in a North Carolina newspaper on February 12, 1984.

In 1984, a few black businesses were scattered between vacant buildings. That tenacity still remains today. The Heart of South Queen Street is still beating, a new life is stirring there.