True Stories Behind Where the Crawdads Sing: Historic Black Communities of Eastern North Carolina

Connecting the Docs: True Stories from the Old North State

Inspired by Where the Crawdads Sing—the bestselling novel by Delia Owens that is now a major motion picture—Connecting the Docs explores true stories that happened in the wild marshes of eastern North Carolina. This episode, the first of a three-part series, is an examination of the resilient, dynamic Black communities that inhabited this land in the 18th and 19th centuries. Samantha Crisp, director of the Outer Banks History Center, and Morgan Johnson, oral history assistant, lead host John Horan into North Carolina’s maroon communities, like those hidden in the Great Dismal Swamp, as well as post-Civil War villages of emancipated African Americans, such as the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony and James City. These communities come to life through the voices of descendants, presented in fascinating clips of oral history interviews held at the State Archives.

Sources Mentioned:

Olmsted, Frederick Law. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States; With Remarks on Their Economy. New York; London: Dix and Edwards; Sampson Low, Son & co., 1856. Published online by Documenting the American South. University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/olmsted/menu.html

An Interview with Marilyn Morrison (b. 1950), 2021, Roanoke-Hatteras Tribe Oral History Project, OH.RHTRIBE.001.

An Interview with Gemaine Gillis (b. 1947), 2021, Roanoke-Hatteras Tribe Oral History Project, OH.RHTRIBE.002.

An Interview with Leesa P. Jones (b. 1951), 2020, She Changed the World Oral History Project, OH.SHE.017

Interview with Darrell Colllins on Outer Banks Black History (Dare County Current TV), 17 February 2021, AV_5319_03. Outer Banks History Center.

James A. Bryan and wife vs. Washington Spivey et al. from North Carolina Reports [1890 : February, v.106]. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Supreme Court, Judicial Department, 1890. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p16062coll14/id/86257/rec/1

Mobley, Joe A. James City, a black community, 1863-1900. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1980. https://digital.ncdcr.gov/digital/collection/p16062coll6/id/982/rec/7

Photograph of James City School, a Rosenwald Fund school, Craven County [c. 1924-1925]. Department of Public Instruction: School Planning Section, School Photographs File, Box 3. https://www.flickr.com/photos/north-carolina-state-archives/51417673688/in/photolist-at618p-2mi6Lnj-2mi6Khi-Sw1Mrq-2miaCzE-RYaCpa-2mi1ygQ-2mi1xF1-2mi5qUg-2mi9ecU-Td5nLx-SCcUo9-T9tPod-2mkB22j/