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Exploring Brooklyn: The Houston home and offices of the Charlotte Post, 624 E. 2nd St.
As a young man, Charles Manuel Grace sailed by ship from West Africa and arrived in the Unites States sometime around 1903.
James E. Hemphill worked in Charlotte from 1917 to 1959. Besides Henry Hayden, he is the only known black photographer in Charlotte prior to 1925. He was born in Blackstock, South Carolina in 1886. Hemphill was the son of James and Frances Hemphill.
Henry Hayden, Sr. (1872-1934) was a contemporary of Baumgarten and Van Ness and was Charlotte’s first known black photographer. The son of David and Mary Hayden, he grew up in Charlotte and opened a studio in 1897 at 303 South Brevard Street.
Although he only lived in Charlotte until age 5, artist Romare Bearden (1914-1988) is still identified with the city of his birth.
Thad Lincoln Tate (1865-1951) was one of Charlotte's earliest and most prominent African American businessmen. He came to Charlotte as a barber. In 1882, he opened his own shop, an enterprise that he would operate for 61 years.
Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858-1932) was born during the era of slavery to parents who were free Blacks. He was the best known North Carolina author of African-American descent in his era. As a young man, he worked in his father's Fayetteville grocery store.
A 1967 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Melvin L. (Mel) Watt (1945-) earned the highest academic average in his class at UNC's Business School.
John Taylor Williams (1859-1924), the man who would become an educator, physician, businessman and diplomat, was born in Cumberland County, N.C., the son of free blacks during the time of slavery.
