Silver Hill an Ancient Community in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

All around us, there is history. The binding holds of power structure is what separates us from attaining all there is to know...about OUR history.  

Winston native, Grass Roots community organizer, and political advocate Anakha Anet explains the barriers that hold other natives of the area apart from the history of the city at heart. Teaming up with Herbs Bargains (East Winston-Salem, near Forsyth Seafood), her goal is to preserve the history buried in the East Winston location.  

“I’m very, very passionate about political education. That’s just something that’s really near and dear to me.” -Anakha Anet 

Using Facebook as a “method of resistance” Anet and other advocates can educate the community about the “strategic displacing of people in Winston-Salem" and other matters in the city of that sort.  

City notes dating back to the 30s led to Anet’s discovery of Silver Hill.  “It was almost like a directory.” said Anet. This discovery initially highlighted the Slums Clearance Project that involved 14 places in Winston-Salem being strategically separated from the political agenda, according to Anet, to learn more about Silver Hill.  

Click Here to learn more about the Slums Clearance Project. (See Page 10)

Silver Hill obtained its name from the herbalist or “witch doctor” who resided in the community. Community members were known to have paid this herbalist in silver coins, hence the name. 

The construction of RJ Reynolds High School (built in 1923 by the widow of RJ Reynolds and intended for the white community) took place during the time the Silver Hill community began to expand [allegedly]. Being that the occupations in the community were allowing the citizens to become more wealthy spreading outward was mandatory. It is said that Silver Hill initially resided in the [now] Buena Vista area.  

Designed in the 1850s, Buena Vista began to get occupied by descendants of colonizers. The largest families in that time period, the Reynolds Family and The Hanes Family. Their measure of wealth allowed for the families to establish neighborhoods and schools for their children, the demographics of the people in these neighborhoods where domestic workers such as farmers and truck drivers, also in the community where gardeners, auto mechanics, and factory workers. Today Buena Vista is a wealthy community mixed from bankers, lawyers, pastors, and doctors.

Home of WIlliam Blackburn. In 1976 The Winston-Salem Journal did an article on SIlver Hill and stated three houses in SIlver hill where still occupied, one of which was William Blackburn who purchased his home on the northern corner of Wiley Ave. in 1947. The Home was built in 1920 by Jack Brooks who was an employee of the Southern Railway.

WIlliam Blackburn, the last resident of SIlver Hill.

On Holiday Street there sits the old neighborhood Baptist Church which sits across from an ancient cemetery. In 1942 the church had burned down on Easter Monday of that year. Most churches kept the record books off all the families ancient lineage. Record notes from the Fire Department states that “The old Church Building was of no value.” In 1910 the Census recorded twelve families living in Silver Hills; half of them being white and the other half were natives, the original copper skinned Americans. Lucy Conrad, John Harrison, Charlie Cain, Frank Harrison, John Hunt, and Flora Johnson where the head of the native families. Between 1901 and 1951, 558 known burials took place in the cemetery, and likely to have more “unknown” burials. Old Newspapers articles mention of graves dated back to 1895. Today all the grave markers are now gone. Quoted from Historical Marker Program.

1894 plat filed by W. E. Franklin, realtor, his plat indicates thirty three lots laid out long Holiday St. and Lincoln Avenue with Cross Street providing an east-west connection between the two streets. Today Lincoln Avenue has been renamed Biscayne Ave, the original location of Holiday and Cross have been incorporated into residential lots.

In modern term this would be called gentrification. A lot of then term negroes, which in fact our the true natives of the land, had their own farms, brick masons, transportation systems, and herbalists as mentioned earlier— who were the original doctors, [the Admore District which sits adjacent to the Buena Vista Community, is currently a medical district.] As one could imagine, these natives, accumulated a lot of wealth, and companies like Hanes and Reynolds made large profits off of their soil. The Carolinas is the most prominent region to grow tobacco especially in Yadkin Valley. Possibilities of the expansion became evident to city officials they used political displacement like the Slums Clearance Project to remove these people from their wealth, and create poverty stricken environments through the Housing Authority to cease them from expanding further or to accumulate wealth.

Click Here to learn more.

SIlver Hills is located in the West Highlands District. See The Slum Clarence Project to learn about other displacements that occured in the city, in the Goler District there is a Harriett Tubman Street. Also in Reynoldstowne where George Black had his brick mason shop, is a St. Benedict the Moor Catholic School on 12th Street.

During the Silver Hill attempt at expansion, access to a main street was blocked off making no way for the residents to enter and exit. A petition was then created so that members could regain access to the main street and was even presented to the Public Works Committee. They petitioned was in fact honored however, not in the favor of Silver Hill. Community members still had no main street access.

We must preserve the history of Silver Hill, one of the many ancient Black communities in the city of Winston-Salem, and we highly commend Anakha, an true native of the city for sharing this information with us, No More Suits, was established by a Tre 4, as we call our home turf, native, so it is and honor to share this article about our hometown with you.

Always stay true to your rootz.

See below a panel we did at Winston-Salem University, to learn more about the Happy Hill Community which was originally called Liberia.

References

The City of Winston-Salem, Public Records

Historic Marker Program | Silver Hill