Burlington's Black Bottom District

The site of downtown Burlington, NC, was established by the North Carolina Railroad Company as Company Shops. Twelve enslaved African-Americans and one Black freedman worked at the Shops.

Following Emancipation, all non-white workers at the Shops were fired by 1867. Several former slaves left the area, but others remained. Thomas Duck (or possibly John Duck) opened a grocery in a 12x16 foot building, selling "cornmeal, fat-back meat and molasses" (Hughes 1954), eventually operating out of a storefront on Front Street that burned in 1884 (Stokes 1981).

Freed former slave Spencer Thomas, who had worked at the Company Shops, opened a tinsmith Shop on Worth St. Reverend Thomas also co-founded the Company Shops Baptist Church. ( Vincent 2009 )

The Sanborn maps were created to aid insurance companies, but provide detailed visualizations of communities. Note the racist pejoratives used on this map to represent a Black school (lower left) and tenement house (upper right), which was at one point operated by Etta McAdoo (City Directory 1908).

An article in the Burlington Daily Times discussed a robbery at a Black Bottom business, possibly the Sanitary Barber Shop, which was operated by John Deloatch and Robert Ruffin in the district during this period. The name was used in newspapers 53 times between 1928 and 1946, then never mentioned again until oral history articles starting in the late 1990s.

Prior to the late 1920s, Black businesses were spread around the downtown district, mixed in with White businesses. By the 1930s, most of the Black businesses were concentrated in a one-block area, now known as the 500-block of S Worth St with modern addressing standards.

Oral histories and business directories suggest the Black Bottom district was most active between the 1930s and early 1960s. In the early 1940s, 13 separate businesses operated simultaneously.

In the early '60s, the municipal government and local business organizations formed an "Urban Renewal Committee" that completed several projects described as "face lifting" for downtown. Several buildings were torn down and Morehead St was extended, cutting off part of the 500-block of Worth St. Several Black businesses moved to Rauhut St during this period.

Burlington received a $7,000,000 federal urban renewal grant for redevelopment of the downtown district. Ostensibly, the grant was intended to modernize the downtown to compete with the new suburban malls. This included tearing down dozens of buildings, adding parking, rerouting roads, and creating a walking mall on Main St. One consequence of this project was the destruction of the remaining buildings that housed Black Bottom businesses.

The Rex Billiard Parlor operated on Worth St for over 30 years, managed at different times by Samuel Graham, Leslie McCulley, David Dixon Jr, and Wilson Hargrove. The pool hall ceased operations in 1979. The building was torn down by 1980, replaced shortly thereafter by a bank and parking lot.