Calvin Brown Upon graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Mr. Calvin L. Brown moved to the city of Charlotte in 1961 to pursue his desire to practice law. At this time, only four lawyers professionally practiced law in Charlotte and Mr. Brown added to that number increasing the count to five. He entered Charlotte during a time of great change as issues of segregation and integration were constantly being challenged and urban renewal promised to tear out the heart of a once thriving black community and ethnic enclave known as Brooklyn. During the urban renewal process, Mr. Brown aided the residents of the Brooklyn community by acting as a liaison between black property owners and the city to negotiate fair and just compensation. Mr. Brown continues to practice law today at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (A.M.E. Zion) Publishing House that now resides on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, once known as Second Street and the heart of the Brooklyn community.Read more…

Mr. Charles Clyburn’s memories of Brooklyn span almost thirty years, having been born in Charlotte and living there his entire life. He attended Second Ward High School, the first African-American High School in Charlotte and graduated in 1951. His testimony is diverse and covers a broad range of topics, including the education, recreation, and snapshots of everyday life in the community.Read more…

Mr. Don Bryant was elected to the Charlotte City Council in 1961, in which capacity he served until 1965. During his first term on city council, Bryant held the only opposing vote to the Urban Redevelopment Plan in Charlotte’s Brooklyn neighborhood. He agreed with the other city council members on the issue of destitution and poverty in the Brooklyn neighborhood and the importance of urban redevelopment, but disagreed with the council’s ideas and methods in achieving the desired goals and objectives. He sums up the interview with a statement that the urban redevelopment plan was a step in the right direction for Charlotte during the 1960s, but was not a perfect plan. Bryant was born on April 10, 1923, in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of James R. Bryant and Lillian C. Bryant. He is the husband of Frances V. Bryant, and the father of Melissa Bryant and Cameron Icard. He entered Davidson College in 1942, but left during his sophomore year to serve the United States in World War II as a B-17 pilot. Returning in 1946, Bryant resumed his courses at Davidson and graduated in 1948 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. Since 1948 he has made his career in the funeral home business, Harry and Bryant Company.Read more…

Mr. Olaf Abraham was born at Good Samaritan Hospital on February 16, 1939. He grew up in a shotgun house located at 1100 East Hill Street. Mr. Abraham attended Myers Street Elementary, Morgan Middle School in the Cherry neighborhood, and Second Ward High School. In the early 1950s, Mr. Abraham and his family moved out of Brooklyn to the Southside community. He continued to return to Brooklyn to finish school at Second Ward High and graduated in 1957. Mr. Abraham worked at Queen City Pharmacy on Second Street, at Wilson and Holmes Pharmacy on Brevard Street, and delivered the Charlotte Observer during his school years. After graduating high school, Mr. Abraham joined the military. He heard about urban renewal and that the Brooklyn neighborhood was being torn down from friends and family. He remembers that love and respect for one another tied the Brooklyn community together at Pearl Street Park and attending Second Ward High School.Read more…

Mr. Arthur Williams was born on August 5, 1931 in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is the third of eight children. He lived in Brooklyn from 1936 to 1939 on the last block of Brown Street. Mr. Williams spent a considerable amount of time in Brooklyn, working in a shoe shine business until he was 14 years old and returning often to meet with friends. He opened his own shoe shine business and soon moved it to his uncle’s barber shop. N.G. Edwards Barber was the largest barber shop in Charlotte with nine chairs. Mr. Williams is a member of Grace A.M.E. Zion Church but he had many positive things to say about the House of Prayer for All People and its impact on the Brooklyn community and in the lives of Brooklyn residents. Mr. Williams spent thirty years in the Army as a Master Sergeant at Arms.

Arthur Williams shares his memories of growing up in the Brooklyn neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina, also known as Second Ward. He discusses residents and small businesses in Brooklyn, including his uncle’s barbershop, N.G. Edwards Barber, and the shoe shine business that he owned and operated as a boy during the Second World War. He talks in detail about the United House of Prayer for All People, including the founder of the church, Bishop Charles Manuel “Daddy” Grace, differences between the House of Prayer and Grace A.M.E. Zion, the church’s impact on the Brooklyn community, and how other churches later copied the House of Prayer because of its success. He also briefly discusses urban renewal in Charlotte during the 1960s and 1970s and why the younger residents who had left Second Ward during that period did not want to return.Read more…