Tens of thousands of people visit Bank of America stadium to watch the Carolina Panthers play football each year – never realizing they are walking on top of lost remnants of a once-thriving Black neighborhood established in the aftermath of the Civil War.
The stadium itself is built directly atop a relic of segregated healthcare: Good Samaritan Hospital, the first private hospital built in North Carolina to serve Black patients. Built in 1891, this historic hospital was one of the oldest of its kind in the United States.
It was also the site of one of the “most horrific racial incidents in Charlotte's history,” according to Dan Aldridge, professor of History and Africana Studies at Davidson College.
A mob of 30 to 35 armed, white men invaded the hospital, dragging a man out of the hospital and into the streets – and shooting him dead in front of the building.
The concept of “urban renewal” destroyed Black neighborhoods, communities, businesses and homes all across North Carolina, especially between 1949 and 1974.
Durham, for example, once had a prominent Black Wall Street, where Black businesses flourished; however, the historic community was almost completely destroyed by construction of the Durham Freeway.
Likewise, Raleigh once had 13 historic Freedmen's Villages, built entirely by men and women freed from slavery in the aftermath of emancipation. Today, only two are remaining, and Oberlin Village, the largest one, was cut in half by the construction of Wade Avenue.
Similarly, Charlotte's Brooklyn community was built by men and women freed from slavery in the late 1800s. Like many Black communities around the state, it was forced into an awful geographical location – on low-lying land where flooding, sewage and sanitation issues made life hazardous.
According to history in the Charlotte Library, the Brooklyn area was first identified on maps as ‘Logtown’ in the late 1800s – a name that matches closely with titles given to similar freedmen villages in the Triangle area, which were often called slang names like ‘Slabtown’ or ‘Save Rent’ due to their inexpensive homes.
In the 1900s, the area became known as Brooklyn, “a name that would become synonymous with the Black community until urban renewal.”
“It's a tragedy that so many stadiums were built on sites that were once Black communities,” said Aldridge. “They're poor neighborhoods. They're struggling neighborhoods. I won't romanticize them by claiming they're all like Black Wall Street, but they were people's homes and people's communities, and they were taken from them.”
Many historically significant Black sites were lost in urban renewal; likewise, many Black communities were forced to build in geographically unfit areas, making growing wealth and property more difficult – and more easily lost over time.
At its peak, Brooklyn was home to:
Charlotte's first Black public school
Charlotte's only Black high school
The city's first free library for Black patrons
The first companies to offer white collar jobs to Black workers
The first private hospital for Black citizens in Charlotte
Today, football players run up and down the Bank of America field for the amusement of thousands of cheering fans. However, in 1913, over a century ago, that same land had a very different story.
(continue reading) related ↵ related ↵
