Raleigh, NC - Seven North Carolina state parks and historic sites offer visitors the chance to explore North Carolina's African American experience year-round.

When vacationers splash in Jones Lake, imagine colonial times at Historic Stagville or hear waves come rolling in at Bear Island at Hammocks Beach State Park, the momentary pleasures of our state's beautiful environment crowd out any thoughts of how these public beaches, lakes and historic sites came into being.

"Black History Month brings the valuable contributions of African Americans to our state and nation into our focus," said Secretary Susan Kluttz of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. "Many of our State Parks and Historic Sites owe their history to the efforts and dreams of many African American North Carolinians of whom we can celebrate throughout the year."

Year-Round Opportunties for Exploration Across North Carolina

Hammocks Beach State Park, Jones Lake and the Reedy Creek section of William B. Umstead State Park once were segregated African American facilities. Although several North Carolina State Historic Sites are recognized for their ties to African American history, the connection of that history for state parks is less well known. From Hammocks Beach to Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, the public can experience settings that once teemed with African Americans at work and play.

Hammocks Beach: A Project of North Carolina's Black Teachers

New York neurosurgeon William Sharpe loved hunting on Bear Island, near Swansboro, and acquired it for his retirement. His long time hunting guide, John Hurst, persuaded him to will it to the North Carolina Teachers Association, an organization of African American Teachers.

The group assumed the deed in 1950 and used it recreationally, but attempts to develop the property were unsuccessful. The 892-acre unspoiled barrier island was donated to the state in 1961 for a park. Following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the park opened to all people. The visitor center, where vacationers catch the ferry to Bear Island, is on a 30-acre mainland tract. These properties and two other islands comprise Hammocks Beach State Park. Last year, the McCrory administration settled a nine-year legal battle over the future of the park, allowing the North Carolina State Park System to acquire 289 acres on the mainland at Hammocks Beach State Park, enlarging it to 1,520 acres.

Jones Lake: A First for African Americans

North Carolina's first state park for African Americans was Jones Lake, near Elizabethtown, which had been developed as part of a jobs program in the 1930s. Sub marginal farm land was purchased The Resettlement Administration managed the property and developed a recreation center at Junes Lake using local talent and materials.

A large bathhouse, beach, refreshment stand and picnic grounds were constructed.  It opened under a lease agreement with the state in 1939 as a segregated state park for African Americans. Jones Lake was tremendously popular with people in the southeastern North Carolina communities. The land was given to North Carolina in October 1954. In later years, all parks became fully integrated.

A Once-Segregated Part of Umstead State Park

The Resettlement Administration and other agencies united to buy 5,000 acres of sub marginal land that became known as Crabtree Recreation Area. Four camps and picnic facilities opened in 1937. The state purchased it for $1 and then made the first state parks division appropriation in the 1940s. In the 1950s more than 1,000 acres of the property was set aside as a park for African Americans and named Reedy Creek State Park. The Crabtree Recreation Area and Reedy Creek Park were combined in 1966 and renamed William B. Umstead State Park in honor of that governor's conservation efforts, and was open to all.

Plantation Life Explored at Stagville and Somerset

As one of the oldest plantations in the state, Historic Stagville's origins date to 1776 when Richard Bennehan purchased 1,213 acres of land in what is now Durham County. The first bondsmen arrived through the purchase and in the dowry of Richard's wife Mary. The farm grew to 30,000 acres in several counties and held 900 enslaved men, women and children.

Today Historic Stagville State Historic Site has 165 acres and several original buildings constructed by African American craftsmen. The Great Barn, which was the largest agricultural building in North Carolina when constructed in 1860, serves as testament to the skill and knowledge of the enslaved craftsmen.

Somerset Place in present-day Washington County covered more than 100,000 acres along Lake Phelps and held 850 laborers in slavery. It was necessarily a self-contained community in the remote northeastern corner of North Carolina, and included barns, stables, sawmills, a hospital, Episcopal chapel, storehouse and other buildings essential to maintain the plantation. Seven original buildings remain. The workforce included black and white, enslaved and free. The plantation collapsed in the aftermath of the Civil War.

The Underground Railroad and Historic Halifax

Best known as a commercial and political center at the time of the American Revolution, Historic Halifax also played a role in the Underground Railroad. Prior to that African American males voted in elections as the North Carolina Constitution of 1776 made no distinction between races when it came to voting. At one time 300 African Americans were registered voters in Halifax County. Disfranchisement in 1835 brought that to an end.

The taverns, print shops and docks of Halifax were sources of information for runaway slaves, and free blacks and sympathetic whites shared valuable news. The nearby Roanoke River and sympathetic blacks and whites helped hundreds of bondsmen to escape slavery. Markers now denote the river as part of the National Underground Railroad to Freedom Network once used by freedom seekers. By 1860, the eve of the Civil War, Halifax and Pasquotank Counties had the highest population of free blacks in North Carolina.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Historic Edenton is the state's second-oldest town and on the Albemarle Sound also provided a maritime means of escape for runaway slaves. Best known of the escaping bondsmen is Harriet Jacobs, who hid in her grandmother's attic in Edenton for seven years before escaping by boat to Philadelphia and then New York. She became an abolitionist, women's rights advocate and author, penning her own story, "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl," under the pseudonym Linda Brent.

A Pioneering Effort in African American Education

Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum once flourished as Palmer Memorial Institute and transformed the lives of more than 2,000 African American youth. The boarding school encouraged "cultivation of traits of honor, thoughtfulness, politeness, honesty, order, and proper appreciation of values" under Brown's watchful eye. Students received a classical education and also had chores that might include work on the farm or in the kitchen. Brown also became a voice and force for Civil Rights and women's rights.

For additional information, please visit http://www.ncdcr.gov/blackhistory (link is external). The Division of State Parks and the Division of State Historic Sites are within the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.