Agenda - 08-25-1997 - C2 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

037 Hughes-Greene House 96). The Eno Presbyterian Church(26)had been completed before the turn-of-the- century as well as had the Arthur Finley House(21). During the 1930s,the only post office in Orange County north of Hillsborough was in the community of Cedar Grove which was considered an important trade center for the northern county(Vukan 1948,p. 61). The two general stores,then known as Ellis' (12)and Oliver's(16),served the community in addition a physician's office,a drugstore,a blacksmith and two still vital churches established in the early t900s: Cedar Grove Methodist (20)and Eno Presbyterian(26). It was a fairly self-sufficient community and thus its ongoing vitality was perpetuated. Few residents owned cars and only Efland-Cedar Grove Road was paved. The community's population,though it included Blacks as well as Whites,was quite homogeneous in its occupation--that of a tobacco farmer. Only 1 out of every 4 residents worked in non-farm jobs(Vukan 1948, p. 85). Cedar Grove conformed to the prototypical concept of a"folk society"as defined in a 1947 American Journal of Sociology publication(Redfield as cited in Lomeli 1976,p. 56). It was small, isolated,relatively self-contained and homogeneous in population. Such a society is,according to a 1953 American Anthropologist article,"relatively immobile,"and a community where"change is slow"(Foster as cited in Lomeli 1976, p. 57 p. 57). Criterion A: Black String Band Music in Cedar Grove from 1930 to 1947 As blues and jazz artists were enjoying commercial popularity in the south,the community of Cedar Grove became a mecca for a different genre of music,that of the Black string band. Additionally,Cedar Grove was the center for Black square dancing in northern Orange County(Lomeli 1976,p.28). According to the 1940 Census,Orange County consisted of 21,171 residents,only a third of the population of the nearby city of Durham. The county's ratio of Whites to Blacks was about two-to-one-- 14,269 Whites to 6,904 Blacks. The ratio in the Cedar Grove Township was an exception to the rest of Orange County: the breakdown was 1,753 Blacks and 1,671 Whites or essentially a racial equilibrium. More Blacks resided in