Some of the missing issues of The Carolina Times from 1979-1982 have been added to Digital NC thanks to our partner, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

In these recently uploaded issues, it’s clear that the paper is committed to voicing some of the experiences of Black citizens of Durham in the late ’70s and early ’80s. One way that the paper celebrates Black history is through the “Things You Should Know” Continental Features, which briefly note the accomplishments of important historic figures. 

Some of the cartoon faces in these features may already seem familiar to you, such as novelist William Wells Brown, the white philanthropist Julius Rosenwald (known for his financial support of “Rosenwald schools”), and Nicholas Biddle, the first Black Union soldier wounded in the Civil War. Others, it seems, haven’t persisted into our collective memory as strongly, though the paper makes a case for them.

One such figure is Mary Fields, apparently the first Black woman to be a star route mail carrier on behalf of the U.S. Postal Service. As her feature suggests, she was sometimes known as “Stagecoach Mary” due to her usual mode of transportation. But Fields didn’t set up her own mail route until she was 60 years old; before that, she worked on board the first Robert E. Lee steamboat (made famous by its race on the Mississippi) and served as the forewoman at St. Peter’s, a Catholic mission in Montana. Other sources confirm that she was incredibly strong and stood around six feet tall.

Though she encountered conflicts in her life and work, Fields was beloved in the community of Cascade, Montana; the town apparently closed schools each year to celebrate her birthday, and she was sometimes exempt from rules governing women. She passed away in 1914 and was celebrated with one of the largest funerals in the town’s history.

Another, even more mysterious figure is Beatrice Johnson Trammell. This blurb has pretty much all the information available about her that can be found with cursory internet searches, and the same is true for the others connected to her in the article. But apparently, she was known well enough in 1982 for someone to include her in the series.

You can see all available issues of The Carolina Times here or browse our North Carolina Newspaper collection by location, type, and date. For more information about UNC Chapel Hill and its library holdings, you can visit their partner page or their website. 

More of “NC’s Semi-Weekly” news from Raleigh is ready for reading thanks to our partner, Shaw University. These issues of The Carolinian span from 1977 to 1984 and detail some of the major stories of Black Raleighites during this time.

One such story is the election of Kenneth C. Wilkins, North Carolina’s first Black Register of Deeds, in 1984. In the front-page article on his victory, Wilkins said, “Since it’s not a policy-making position, but an administrative one, a different perspective on the situation does not mean as much,” but adds that representation is still an important and inspiring step. 

Another article from October 18, 1984 advertises an upcoming visit from famed author James Baldwin, who visited the UNC Chapel Hill campus during Humanitarian Week. Baldwin planned to speak about his childhood in Harlem and his experiences as a Black American, according to the article. His visit came just a couple of years after the release of his documentary on the stations of the Civil Rights Movement in the American South, I Heard It Through the Grapevine.

You can see all available issues of The Carolinian here or browse our North Carolina Newspapers collection. You can also filter all newspapers to see our full collection of African-American newspapers. To learn more about Shaw University, you can visit their partner page and their website.

Thanks to our partner, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, issues that fill in previous holes in our site’s holding of the Winston-Salem Chronicle from 1975 to 1982 are now available on our website.

Since 1974, the Winston-Salem Chronicle has published weekly issues that focus primarily on news about and events in Winston-Salem’s Black community.

To view all issues issues of the Winston-Salem Chronicle available on our website, please click here.

To view more newspapers from around North Carolina, please visit our North Carolina Newspapers Collection here.

To learn more about the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, please visit their website.

April 2020 issue of the Charlotte Jewish News, the first to be published after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

The latest batch of Charlotte Jewish News issues, covering 2019-2021, show the extreme impact COVID-19 had on everyone starting in March 2020.  In particular, the issues show the impact on faith communities and how they shifted to still practice their faith while dealing with a pandemic.  The issues in 2020 are sporadic following March, with regular monthly papers not picking back up until September 2020.  Zoom services, a shift to virtual learning for schools, and community action to donate food and money to those who lost jobs are all detailed in the paper.  

View more issues of the Charlotte Jewish News, which date back to 1979 by visiting it’s newspaper page.

To learn more about our partner the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Charlotte located at the Levine-Sklut Judaic Library and Resource Center, visit their partner page.