By the end of the Civil War, over 331,000 slaves had been freed statewide. Although they were free, life for former slaves was not easy. Opportunities were limited, and in the years following emancipation, progress was slow.
Founded in 1902 by Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown, who led it for fifty years, Palmer Memorial Institute near Greensboro was a unique private school for Afro-Americans.
Within the Hayti district in Durham in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Afro-Americans built strong economic and social institutions, although they were still rigidly segregated elsewhere.
Many ordinary people led civil rights protests. In 1968-69, when school desegregation in Hyde County threatened the loss of two Afro-American schools, a one-year student boycott saved the schools.
Begun in 1785 with 167 skilled and unskilled slaves, Somerset Place in Washington County was a prosperous plantation by 1790. Slaves' descendants continued the work until the end of the Civil War in 1865.
Slavery in the state's mountains differed from that supported by the cash-crop economy of the east. In the west, slave owners were mostly professional men who used the slaves in their businesses or hired them out to others.