Black people have lived in this area since the time the Wachovia Moravians purchased the first enslaved Africans in 1769. Initially, Black residents were both enslaved and free and they lived, worked, and worshiped alongside one another. Despite the church’s rules that prohibited individual ownership of slaves, the use of slave labor soon crept more into Moravian life as the towns of Bethania, Bethabara, and Salem grew.

By the time Forsyth County was established in 1859, the Black population was increasing with the transition to an industrial-based economy. And unlike other rural areas of the South, a more urban style of living practiced meant enslaved people lived in town or in their owner’s homes.

Following the Civil War, newly freed Black people were still prohibited from buying land in the town of Salem and were limited to the property just across Salem Creek. This area, now known as Happy Hill, was where they established the first school for Black children.  

At the start of the twentieth century, Black people accounted for about 40% of the total population of Winston and Salem. As the century progressed, the rapid expansion of local tobacco and manufacturing industries provided increased opportunities for good employment and created many Black success stories, despite intentional oppression efforts by white leaders to thwart Black prosperity through urban renewal, redlining, and Jim Crow laws.

Black experiences in Forsyth County are rooted in a long history of entrepreneurship, ingenuity, and courage. Black residents have, and continue to face, the inequitable and discriminatory conditions of their time to provide the backbone of our area’s economic and social growth. Through it all, there has been a spirit of giving rooted in faith, family, and community as Black people have looked after each other and made use of their time, talents, and treasure to create lasting change for future generations.