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The
Cherry neighborhood, just a half mile from downtown Charlotte,
was one of the city's earliest suburbs. It was developed in
the 1890s for black families who wanted to move away from the
crowded rental housing of the city. For many of these families,
Cherry provided them with their first opportunity to own a home.
Although much has changed in the areas around it, many of Cherry's
original houses, churches, and schools still remain. They are
a good example of a black neighborhood that survived urban renewal.
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 Mount
Zion Lutheran Church
1605 Luther St.
Mount Zion Lutheran Church has been a landmark in the Cherry
neighborhood for 100 years. The wood-framed house of worship
was built when Cherry was new, and was attended by the laborers,
farmers, and blacksmiths who moved their families from downtown
neighborhoods to the new suburb. |
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 Morgan
School
501
S. Torrence St.
Morgan School, located in the heart of Cherry, was opened in 1925.
Here, children read from books that are carefully wrapped with
paper at the school's library.
Morgan was one of the many all-black schools closed in 1968. It
was reopened in 1973. Today it is a middle school for emotionally-disturbed
adolescents. |
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 Alfred
Flagg in back of Fox St. house.
Alfred and Dorothy Flagg and her mother Bessie Simpson, lived
in a house on Fox Street in Cherry until 1970.
In addition to teaching school for 48 years, Dorothy Flagg also
planned scores of weddings. As a gifted designer and seamstress,
she created wedding dresses for brides all over town.
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Dot
serves food at a wedding breakfast for the Jordan-Gillibeau
wedding.
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Seated
from left to right are Virginia Hill Woods, Louise Rankins,
Virginia Shadd, and the groom.
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Bessie
Simpson helps her daughter Dot with a wedding breakfast.
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 The
Cherry business corner at the intersection of Baxter St. and
Baldwin Ave.
The stores here include the Cherry Superette, Morris Barber
Shop, and the Charmette Beauty Nook.
The Cherry neighborhood is located between Kings Dr. and Queens
Rd., and Morehead St. and Elizabeth Ave.
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 Houses
on Baldwin Ave. in Cherry.
The neighborhood was planned by wealthy white landowners John
and Mary Myers. The Myers planned for a central park area, gave
land for churches, and planted many of the towering trees that
now frame the area. Unlike Brooklyn, Greenville, First Ward,
and other black neighborhoods, Cherry was not destroyed by urban
renewal in the 1960s.
 Catessa
Moody talks with Willie Bell Talbert at their Cherry home.
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 L.
B. Gaddy on the porch of his duplex in Cherry. |
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 The
Kirkpatrick family gathers for a reunion at the family home in
Cherry.
The Kirkpatricks owned large amounts of land in what is now Sherwood
Forest. |
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 Myers
Tabernacle AME Zion Church, 509 Cherry St.
Myers Tabernacle AME Zion Church was built in 1920 on land donated
to the congregation by John and Mary Myers, the wealthy white
founder of the neighborhood. The land had been given to the
church members on the condition that they build a sanctuary
on it within ten years. Within five years, the massive church
was completed. Cherry property owners and church members Kelly
Alexander and Bishop George Clinton had participated in the
effort.
Click
here to learn more about
Price Davis' life in Cherry and the Big Apple.
 Life-long
member Price Davis in the sanctuary. His father, Rev. A.W. Davis,
was a pastor at the church.
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