Racial Myth & Memory 2025

Late October tour dates will be finalized in May 2024.

We depart Durham in a comfortable charter bus for the three-hour drive to Wilmington and return the next evening.

We'll be adding specifics about special guests, additional meals, and other logistics. Please note itinerary details are subject to change.

Poplar Grove, a former peanut and sweet potato plantation, is a stop on the National Park Service’s Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, which begins just north of Wilmington.

Executive Director Caroline C. Lewis will visit with us to highlight the history of the West African peoples and North Carolina Black History (including the American Revolution and the Civil War) through the lives of enslaved people at the plantation.

The Bellamy Mansion Museum of History & Design Arts, built by free and enslaved people between 1859 and 1861, is another Wilmington stop on the Gullah Geechee Culture Heritage Corridor. The site includes one of the country's handful of original, fully restored urban quarters of the enslaved open to the public.

The only successful coup d’état in American history took place in Wilmington on November 10th, 1898, when white supremacists murdered Black residents and overthrew the city’s multiracial government.

In 2016, a new historical marker commemorated the Wilmington 10, wrongly incarcerated for most of the 1970s because of their activism.

Because It's Time, a sculpture by Dare Coulter (a Raleigh native and alumna of NC State’s College of Design and Meredith College’s art program), stands on the campus of UNC-Wilmington.

These two sites offer a lens to understand the injustice of the case against the Wilmington 10 and the through lines to more recent Black Lives Matter protests.

We'll be making other brief or more involved stops. For example:

• the Giblem Lodge of the Prince Hall Masons
• the site of the Gregory Normal School, which educated African-Americans until 1921
• the site of the Williston School, whose alumni include Tuskegee Institute architect Robert Taylor, tennis pioneer Althea Gibson, Greensboro Four activist Joseph McNeil, and Harlem Globetrotter star Meadowlark Lemon
• the Italianate John E. Taylor House by a prominent local African-American builder
• Pine Forest Cemetery, final resting place of prominent local Black citizens and victims of the 1898 Race Massacre.

We'll enjoy delicious meals at local eateries, including family-owned Casey's Buffet Barbecue and Home Cooking.

We'll also have time for reflection and sharing.

We anticipate one pre-trip potluck and informational meeting to which all participants will be invited.

We also hope interest warrants at least one post-trip potluck open to all travelers.

We're glad to include anyone at a distance via video-conferencing.

We're looking ahead to Spring trips to Charleston and Savannah (2025); Memphis and Mississippi (2026); and New Orleans (2027).

Charleston

More enslaved Africans first set foot on land in Charleston than anywhere else in North America, and the interstate slave trade was just as significant there. It's no wonder John C. Calhoun and other South Carolina political figures resisted abolition at all costs and that the first shots of the Civil War came at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor.

In June 2015 at Mother Emanuel AME, one of the South's oldest Black churches, the pastor and eight parishioners were gunned down during Scripture study by a young white supremacist. The church is on a street still named for Calhoun.

We'll build our visit around the International African American Museum (opening in 2023) and other important sites, from the McLeod Plantation Historic Site to the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, housed in the Avery Normal School.

Savannah

Savannah is America's first planned city, and 22 of its 24 squares remain. The trans-Atlantic slave trade brought many African-Americans through its port, and many of them formed the unique Gullah Geechee culture of the coastal communities in Georgia and South Carolina.

The Pin Point Heritage Museum, located in an oyster and crab factory on the banks of the Moon River, shares the language, religion, foodways, and stories of this Gullah Geechee community, which occupies the largest African-American owned waterfront property on the East Coast.

Sapelo Island, a 20-minute ferry ride from the mainland, features a National Estuarine Research Reserve, the mansion once owned by North Carolina tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds, Jr., and the Hog Hammock community, permanent home to about 70 full-time residents, many of whom are descended from the enslaved laborers of Sapelo's plantations. 

The First African Baptist Church (home of North America's oldest black congregation), the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters Museum, the King-Tisdell Cottage, the African American Family Monument, and other sites give us insight into the rich African American history of Savannah. She is a co-founder of Southern Restaurants for Racial Justice, which advocates for workers of color in the food industry.

Anthony returned to Carolina Friends in August 2009 as the first Director of Advancement, and in 2016 became the School's first Director of Extended Learning, which includes Summer Programs, Extended Day, after-school classes and music lessons, travel opportunities, and other enrichment options for students, adults, and families. He's also now helping launch and lead the School's new institute for teaching and learning.

He earned baccalaureate degrees magna cum laude in International Relations and History and an Asian Studies Certificate at American University and then completed an M.A. in History and received Phi Beta Kappa honors at Emory University. 

Anthony has worked as a teacher (in subjects including U.S. history, government and politics, debate, and economics), college counselor, and advisor at Holland Hall School (Tulsa, Oklahoma), Raleigh Charter High School, Durham Academy, and CFS (2002-2005).

Much of his research and teaching has focused on the intersection of politics and culture--especially race--since World War II. An Arkansas native, he helped create and lead civil rights bus tours of the South for high school students and in 2016 and 2019 Durham civil rights experiences for CFS staff.

Anthony has served in leadership and advisory roles for various professional organizations and non-profits, including Student U, Junior Leadership Durham, Youth Leadership Tulsa, Youth Services of Tulsa, GLSEN, Habitat for Humanity, and the Southern and National Associations for College Admission Counseling.

A CFS alum parent of two, Anthony co-led the Beloved Community Journey exploring racial justice in Alabama and Georgia (Summer 2023 and Spring 2024) and in Summer 2026 will co-facilitate a third Quaker Journey retracing early Friends history in Northern England's breathtaking Lake District.

Tour tuition will be finalized in Spring 2025 and include:

• transportation via air-conditioned charter coach
• one night of double-occupancy hotel lodging*
• one breakfast, one lunch, and one dinner
• all admission fees and guest speaker honoraria
• on-board live and multi-media programming
• resource materials about tour destinations, civil rights history, contemporary social justice issues, and other relevant topics
• the services of an experienced tour leader/historian

* individual rooms will be available for a supplement

The tuition won't include:

• incidental purchases
• room service and other hotel incidentals
• alcohol with a meal
• trip/travel insurance

A deposit will be due at the time of application and refundable if we can fill your space.

We'd love to have you and a diverse group of participants "get on board" for this powerful personal and community journey. We'll have some funds available to help Carolina Friends staff members participate and, thanks to trip revenues, a very modest amount for educators in charter and traditional public schools as well as independent schools who couldn't afford to go without partial support.

Registration will open in 2024-2025 as soon as we're able to confirm dates and other details.

If you'd like us to keep you updated on this or other study trips (including the opening of registration), please complete this brief notification form.