Fifty years ago this weekend, a Downtown Winston-Salem landmark was demolished. On a cold late March morning back in 1972, a crowd gathered in front of First Baptist on Fifth Street to witness the Robert E. Lee Hotel’s demolition. The Robert E. Lee Hotel long ago surrendered to the whims of urban planners. The grand hotel with a p… More
I found this article in the Central Library’s North Carolina Room some time ago. It’s eye-opening. In the article below (that I am sharing for educational purposes) we learn that some prime real estate near Buena Vista has a hidden history. It was once used by Francis Fries to house enslaved Africans who were too old to be e… More
Recently, baseball great Hank Aaron died at age 86. The celebrated home run hitter overcame a shameful barrage of racist hostility when he broke Babe Ruth’s home run record on April 8, 1974, in Atlanta. It’s time for the Atlanta Braves to change their name to the Hammers, in honor of “hammering” Hank Aaron.
I… More
Last Thursday, just ahead of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, The Chronicle ran a piece on King’s visit to Winston back in 1964. King visited Goler Metropolitan AME Church as well as recently desegregated Wake Forest University. King’s visit to Camel City came just one year after his iconic “I Have a Dream&#… More
For nearly forty years (1975-2012), Winston’s Union Station was just another garage. It was Davis Garage, an auto repair and towing service owned and operated by Harvey Davis. The Davis family bought Union Station for a song back in 1970 and had ambitions of one day redeveloping it. Harvey Davis’ dreams were dashed when … More
Today, I’m posting the first of what I hope to be many Throwback Thursday posts. Every Thursday, for the foreseeable future, I am planning on examining, at length, a video from the City of Winston-Salem’s YouTube channel and other sources. The City of Winston-Salem has a number of excellent documentaries that deserve m… More
Have you ever wondered where some of Winston’s road names came from? MapForsyth recently released an application to help satisfy your curiosity. You can find an introduction to the Historic Centerlines Web App on Forsyth County’s webpage. I found the Historic Centerlines Web App to be a useful tool that needs a little r… More
Yesterday was the Winston-Salem /Forsyth County Schools’ first day of classes. Due to the coronavirus, students are learning remotely via Zoom, instead of in the classrooms. With all the talk about the coronavirus this year, little to no attention has been given to the topic of school “choice.” This month marks … More
Sunday, over two hundred people gathered downtown to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Winston-Salem Sit-In. Winston-Salem State chancellor, Elwood Robinson, and Wake Forest president Nathan Hatch led the commemoration honoring the WSSU and WFU students who participated in the Winston-Salem Sit-In.
Downtown Winston-Salem’s main traffic artery, Salem Parkway, opened on Sunday, February 2. It had been closed since November 17, 2018. I will remember the roughly 14 months that Business 40/Salem Parkway was closed, as the long 2019. The absence of four lanes of highway running from Peters Creek to Highway 52 wasn’t ca… More
