Historic Black Neighborhoods of Raleigh (American Heritage)

The book is more of a (short) encyclopedia than anything else. There’s no coherent flow, transitions are abrupt, and material is repeated throughout the book. The whole thing reads like a high school book report - lots of facts but no real discussion of social issues, cause and effect, or development through time. Also would have benefitted from more maps so we can actually see the areas described in the book.

I’ve waited for a book like this for a while. I cycle the city and like to show new arrivals to the city the neighborhoods, relate some history, and I’ve had to really search to find black history which is so fundamental to half the city. This is a good book but it is lite on substance. I know the date of this book doesn’t extend well into the life of the author but I can get some better details talking to local blacks people that I can’t find in books, even this one. Details like, cemeteries were filled and black folk had to be buried in school grounds. What happened after that I don’t know. I assume they were moved? There is a cemetery in Oberlin Village and when a parking lot was dug on the south side border, a local told me they saw bones exhumed and nothing was done about it (1001 Wade Ave parking lot expansion.) There is info in the bicentennial speech by a Mr. Battle relating hanging by court order in the black neighborhood SE of Bloomsbury court house on what was called Hanging Hill. I can’t figure out where that is. And the neighborhood was largely destroyed by Heritage Park and MLK/Western expansion etc projects. I could go on, but this book lacked in many more personal details I’d like to read about and was more clinical. Still, better than nothing. Hopefully this will inspire a more detailed write. I hear from ppl like the town manager Joe respected and well known, hard working, and serious the author is. So I hope this review isn’t seen as negative, only a hope for an extension of this work in the future. Its a great start!