Coming from Indiana five years ago, I’ve always felt a deep connection to Raleigh despite only having a surface understanding of why. My mother was born in the City of Oaks, but raised in the Midwest.
My great-grandparents, my grandmother and her five siblings, were a family here. I’ve heard stories over the years about how my grandmother took in children and cared for many people.
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Then there’s my great-grandfather, an entrepreneur. He ran a corner store off Bragg Street and children knew him as a hard worker. Then, in the mid-90s, we had a family reunion in Raleigh. I was too young at the time to take it all in and appreciate the many relatives gathered in one place.
So much historical knowledge I could have collected. I didn’t take advantage of that moment, and it still troubles me. I know I have a lot of family here, but I only know a handful of cousins. We get together quarterly for dinner or breakfast.
Despite that, I could not tell you much more about my extended family history.
WRAL News executive enterprise producer Ashley Talley assigned me to research the ancestry of Triangle residents and present my findings to each person.
As a history buff and PBS Documentary nerd, I was thrilled.
While discussing various angles of the story, I mentioned to her that my great-grandparents raised their family here.
"Let me look into that," she said.
She did more than a courtesy search. She dug in.
Connecting to the Raleigh of old
Talley found marriage licenses, death certificates, addresses on dirt roads, census records, and my family tree reaching back to 1825. As I looked over each document, I felt a rush through my body that these people were all connected to me and this city.
“Who do you see on this page?” she asked, as she showed me a census that carried my great grandparents’ names.
This level of validation overwhelmed me, showing me that my connection to this city wasn’t just a passing feeling.
I didn’t know I could feel even more attached, but the next piece of paper made me feel emotional.
Back in the 1930s, the federal government recorded a project that included first-hand accounts of the lives of African Americans who experienced enslavement. It was called Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project. It’s estimated that more than 300,000 enslaved people lived in North Carolina.
Several dozen of the formerly enslaved people who were part of the project lived in Raleigh, including my great-great-great uncle, Richard C. Moring.
I instantly read his words. He gave a brief account of his daily life under slavery, a little of his family structure, and even recalls a time when he saw the Yankees chase the Confederates out of Morrisville. His storytelling fascinated me.
His diction is recorded in each sentence. My heart felt heavy, and I realized this was a family member of mine who endured the unspeakable. I knew the formerly enslaved existed in my family. I just never had names.
Uncle Richard had one sentence that initially confused me, but I quickly understood what he meant.
“I didn’t know much about the Morings,” the sentence read.
I didn't know why he didn't know much about the Morings, as it was his last name. Then it struck me. It was not his last name, it was the name of his enslaver. The gravity of having a name attached to you that you have no connection to has to be painful.
I also learned about my great-great grandparents, Walter and Elanora, who worked the farms in Wake County.
The couple worked hard to maintain and care for their six children. Then heartbreak happened, Elanora passed away at 33 years old.
This left my great-great-grandfather to raise the children just as the Great Depression was about to begin.
Roots in one of Raleigh's oldest Black neighborhoods
I learned I’m connected to Raleigh’s 4th Ward as I continued reading. Having done multiple stories in that area, I talked to activist Octavia Rainey, who fights daily to preserve the ward’s history. I never knew she was fighting to protect my history as well.
The 4th Ward, at one point, was one of the oldest Black neighborhoods in Raleigh. Urban renewal reshaped it. There are memorable pictures in Raleigh’s archives of Mayor Seby Jones taking a sledgehammer to a home as urban renewal was promised.
The cost of modernization meant about a 1,000 African Americans lost their homes and had to move. One of those people who called the 4th Ward home was my grandmother.
My grandmother passed away 20 years ago.
If I knew what I know now, I would question her about the sights and sounds of the 4th Ward. I would ask her to take me down Hargett Street and describe the social scene outside the Lightner Building, which still stands, but in the 1920s, it served as a social hub for African Americans. It sat on the same block as the Hamlin Drug Store, one of the oldest Black pharmacies.
Walking or driving around what exists of 4th Ward now, I will never view it the same.
I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that for many African Americans, uncovering their family’s history can present challenges.
The lack of census records before 1870 often made tracing our roots difficult, and enslaved individuals’ records have been poorly kept or even lost. That’s where the family’s oral historian comes in. Those are the senior members of the family.
They can often recall stories passed down from generation to generation, as well as give names, locations and even the best ways to cook a meal to treat a cold. But what happens when they pass away?
We lose that institutional knowledge. Armed with the documentation that I now have, I’m eager to learn more and share what I know with my family and children. Not just orally, but I plan to give each one of them the paperwork I received.
I now know why I’ve always had such a deep connection to this state and city. It’s not just the climate, the beaches, the mountains, the food or even the people. It’s because Raleigh is my family’s history.
This place is part of who I am. I’m grateful that we didn’t stop searching and kept digging because it led me to love North Carolina even more.