North Carolina

- [Thomas] If this image we re in a museum, no one would doubt its importance to our shared history.

But history isn't just the artifacts in institutions, [camera shutter clicking] it's also the precious objects we hold in our hands and hearts, the ordinary family photos that people create every day.

- This is Family Pictures... - Family Pictures... - Family Pictures USA, action.

[jazzy music] - [Thomas] I'm Thomas Allen Harris.

Filmmaker, photographer, and host of Family Pictures USA.

We're traveling the country, inviting everyone to share their family photos, revealing a new history of our community, our country, and ourselves.

[jazzy music] Once you see America th rough family pictures, you'll never see this country the same way again.

[jazzy music] [dramatic music] - [Thomas] North Carolina, an historically rural state, is changing rapidly.

[camera shutter clicking] They take pride in being down home, with deep roots to family, community, and the land.

But as North Carolina grows, those who are from here and those who've just come here are shaping new identities.

How can values rooted in the soil of simpler times survive the transition to a future still being determined?

Okay, everyone put on white gloves to protect your photos.

[dramatic music] Okay.

[camera shutter clicking] - This is my father and we believe this picture is from around 1911.

This is my father here, Sam Powell.

We grew up on a farm in Whitakers, North Carolina, and it was just a beautiful childhood, beautiful family.

My father was very old when I was born but luckily I do remember him and one of my funniest memories is that he would let me sleep at the foot of his bed to keep his feet warm.

- This picture right here [camera shutter clicking] tells the story of how life was for my family.

This is my grandfather here and this is my dad, the shortest one on the end.

One time I had a cousin that lived in town and he came to visit them.

And he did not live on a farm, was not familiar with farm life, and he asked what the flower was on top of the tobacco stalk.

And my dad and his brother said, "Oh, that's called a sucker."

And he said, "A sucker?

"Well what do you do with it?"

And he said, "Well, you suck on it."

And he got really sick and they felt really bad.

[upbeat music] - I chose this picture to share because it shows my dad.

[camera shutter clicking] One of the things that he prides himself on and that is making and curing really pretty tobacco.

Tobacco's a very important part of our history, it's a very important part of our landscape.

- This is a picture of us doing what we call setting tobacco and I think one thing I like about this photograph is these are folks from all over our community, there are Native Americans here, there are African Americans here, there are white folks here.

It was very hard work but everybody had a great time.

- My daddy always said it didn't matter what color a man's skin was, it mattered whether he'd work or not and you could put a man in a tobacco field, you could find out if they'd work or not.

[camera shutter clicking] - [Thomas] Textiles and tobacco used to be major pillars of the North Carolina economy, providing a foundation for families earning a living off the land.

[ethereal music] But for farmers, these are uncertain times as they try to find ways to preserve the only life they've ever known.

In Institute township in Eastern North Carolina, the family of Warren Brothers has been farming this land since before the Civil War.

[upbeat folk music] - That is my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Warren Brothers [camera shutter clicking] and this is his wife, Winnifred Rowntree Brothers.

He was in the Civil War and her husband died and was a friend of his in his regiment.

After the war, he went over to tell her and he kinda fell in love.

They got married and had two sons.

And that's my uncle Will and that's my great-grandfather and he was actually in the House of Representatives in North Carolina, he was a politician.

- Okay.

- But not for long.

He came home after he did one, he called it a tour of duty in Raleigh and he said he'd never been around such a crooked bunch in his life and he was going back to farmin'.

[gentle music] - So what's the future of a medium-sized farm in Eastern North Carolina now?

- That is a good question.

I'm still in the process of figuring that out.

There's nothing constant about it, it's not like a paycheck every month, you know, and the bills certainly come every month.

[gentle music] - So this looks like harvesting-- - That's my father with some of his hybrid seed corn.

[camera shutter clicking] [gentle music] - [Thomas] What was your dad's most serious challenge as a farmer?

- Probably teaching oh not him, me how to farm.

[laughing] I was kinda unruly there for a little while but I came around.

- Are you ready for the thrill of your life?

Here we have a year's full of hard work of quality tobacco.

Isn't this beautiful tobacco?

That father worked so hard to put in.

- [Thomas] The hard work in the fields culminated at the annual tobacco auctions that brought farmers and their families together from across the region.

- It was a big social thing, you'd carry your crop to town and sit on your, you know, on your bale of tobacco with a straw in your mouth and talk to everybody, that kinda thing.

And those days are gone now.

This is the true cabbage collard strain comin' out right here.

- I see.

Is this too low, is this one too low?

- [Warren] Somethin' has been out here chompin' on 'em.

- Yeah, I can see that.

So what did you inherit from them?

- I guess that, I mean we're all bein' farmers, I guess, just that love of the land.

- And resilience.

- Yeah, resilience.

- Persistence, hard-headedness.

- Hard-headedness, yeah, I'm good at that, too.

- [Thomas] Warren now grows organic vegetables, about 50 different varieties.

Here we go.

- Here we go.

- Here we go.

- Here we go, here we go, here we go, tip it over.

Let 'em loose.

- Here we go, that's a lot.

All right.

[rustling] - You'll be here all day.

- [laughs] Going slow, huh?

[laughs] Any advice for my technique?

- Just speed it up.

- Speed it up.

Where do you see, your farm and farming, the type of farming you're doing, where do you see it going in the future?

- We're sort of bankin' on this hemp crop and who knows, it may be a shoo in for legalizin' marijuana, we may turn into a hemp/marijuana farm, who in the world knows?

- Gonna be a pot farmer.

- I'll be a pot farmer, yeah.

- So it depends where the economic winds blow.

- That's right, that's right.

In farmin', you always got to be willin' to change up and do somethin' different.

[gentle music] - We're acting like farmers, right?

- We are.

[laughs] - This is what the farmer does.

[laughs] [gentle music] - These pictures have always been in our family because my great-grandma had a camera in the 1920s and would take pictures of her children.

And they lived out in the country and it was really rural but she was the only one who really had a camera, so the families that lived close by, and other relatives, had pictures of their family because of her.

[camera shutter clicking] This is probably one of my favorite pictures, this is my great-grandparents, Brett and Essie Bennett.

You know, their spirit is within us and their DNA is within us and, you know, they trailblazed and they endured a lot of hardship that made us a lot stronger today.

- Don't forget your lines.

- It's Family Pictures USA.

- [Both] Unit C, interview 13.

[laughing] [camera shutter clicking] - Well this picture shows our grandfather, our mother's father, James O. R. Cobb, is right here.

It also shows his complete family with his sisters and father and mother.

His father, James Samuel, was an executive with Liggett Myers Tobacco.

They all originally had big farms and then sort of migrated, they all kind of ended up in Durham, I think, working with the Dukes and the American Tobacco Company.

[camera shutter clicking] - [Thomas] Washington Duke was a local farmer who saw an opportunity and rose to prominence with tobacco after the Civil War.

[camera shutter clicking] [jazzy music] He and his sons, Benjamin and James, known as Buck, expanded the cigarette empire that had transformed Durham from a sleepy railroad stop into an economically vibrant metropolis.

- This is a picture of my great-uncle Moses Gladstein.

[camera shutter clicking] In 1881, Buck Duke went up to New York and brought Moses down with 120 Russian and Polish Jewish cigarette rollers to work in his factory.

After a few years, the Jewish cigarette rollers were replaced by machines and they dispersed to other small towns around North Carolina.

My great-uncle stayed here and that was over 100 years ago.

[camera shutter clicking] - [Thomas] Washington Duke and his family established a close relationship with the African American leadership of Durham during reconstruction and maintained those relationships for the rest of their lives.

The Dukes supported black business ventures, believing that white Durham would prosper if black Durham prospered, too.

[camera shutter clicking] Black Durham did prosper.

There were millionaires as well as a middle class that thrived in neighborhoods like Walltown and Hayti.

But people still struggled, particularly in Brookstown.

- I think it's worth sayin' Brookstown is one of the forgotten black neighborhoods in Durham.

[camera shutter clicking] [jazzy music] I was born well after the freeway demolished it.

- This is my grandfather, we called him Papa.

They're standin' on Daxton Avenue, which is in Brookstown.

- There was a hotdog stand standin' right beside it.

My grandfather had built a hotdog stand for his youngest son so it became Mac's Hotdog Stand and it was some of the best hotdogs in Durham.

Brookstown really loved that place.

- This is George and Lily Wall.

[camera shutter clicking] George is the founder of the Walltown community and he is the beginnin' of the clan that you see here.

He remained a faithful employee of Duke University and was well loved by the staff.

[jazzy music] - Two generations of janitors worked really hard at the university to help build it, doin' every task that was needed to be done and when he died, he'd left $100 to the university for the advancement of African American men in entrepreneurship and in community.

The fact that he did that at a time when African Americans couldn't even attend the university means a lot to our family and I think that's the reason why we are what we are today.

[hip hop music] - [Thomas] Talib Graves-Manns is part of a new generation in Durham that is inspired by the legacy of Parrish Street.

These blocks are home to some of the oldest black-owned financial companies in the nation, [camera shutter clicking] including North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and Mechanics and Farmers Bank.

In a segregated South, black business people now had an economic engine to build new businesses and a flourishing community, dubbed Black Wall Street.

Scholar and civil rights pioneer W. E. B.

Du Bois sang its praises.

- W. E. B. DuBois said that what he saw in reference to cooperative economics and business development in Durham was not seen anywhere else in the United States.

A person could be born to a black doctor in a black hospital, go on to matriculate through black-owned high schools and colleges, go to work and created their own businesses, and then when they pass on, be buried in a black-owned cemetery with bricks made by a black brickmason.

[upbeat music] - [Thomas] So tell me about this street.

- [Talib] These are photographs of Parrish Street Black Wall Street in its heyday.

[camera shutter clicking] [upbeat music] - It's kind of like a time capsule.

So there's a tangible relationship between Mechanics and Farmers Bank from the early 1900s to you as a young entrepreneur.

- Yeah, that's what's really interesting.

It gives me chills sometimes, I think about what's happening in our community right now here in Durham.

- No wonder you moved back here to Durham.

- Yeah, yeah, L.A. wouldn't give me a loan.

[laughing] [funky music] - [Thomas] Young people are flocking to Durham to develop new business and technology ventures.

[funky music] At a downtown hotel built inside an old bank, Talib and his colleagues share what business and family mean in Durham.

[funky music] Everyone here is either an entrepreneur or has a family history with entrepreneurs based in Durham.

- This picture here means a lot to me.

This is a family photo.

[camera shutter clicking] [funky music] So my mother's a real estate broker now.

Me, I do quite few things.

There's my dad who, his clothing business in Philadelphia for over 20 years.

And then my sister, she's a real estate broker.

So everybody in this picture is an entrepreneur.

- Yes, my name is Nathan Garrett.

That's a photograph of the Board of Directors of Mechanics and Farmers Bank.

[funky music] I'm right there in the only thing that isn't conservative.

[laughing] I was the first African American who was born in North Carolina and became a Certified Public Accountant.

My grandfather went into real estate, my father was a pharmacist.

I am, in my family, the third person who was an entrepreneur.

- So this is my grandfather.

[funky music] Growin' up, you know, we'd be at the house and people were always comin' over with envelopes because they were payin' their bills.

He owned a bunch of property and he also sold insurance for North Carolina Mutual.

You know, that's kind of our legacy.

- My name's Jess Averhart and I'm a fourth generation entrepreneur.

I'm the co-founder of Black Wall Street Homecoming and these are my other co-founders.

- Black Wall Street Homecoming is a destination for black entrepreneurs from across the country.

You come here, you get your soul fed, you get access to resources and for us, that's not just dollars, that's other people who are building businesses.

We want people to know that you can get what you need here in Durham.

My mom was a country girl from Johnston County, North Carolina.

Grew up in a family of farmers, really big family, she was one of 10 kids.

My connection to entrepreneurship is really through sort of that grassroots, sharecropper-type upbringing.

My connection to the organization that we've founded is really trying to create an opportunity for people to be able to leave a legacy for their families.

- Durham is full of possibilities and it's up to us to figure out what that looks like.

My son is 16 and I'm always telling him fortune favors the brave, baby, you've gotta take the risks, you gotta take the chances.

Durham had so much triumph 120 years ago.

When we look at more black millionaires in Durham than anywhere else in the country, that's a real legacy.

And so you can't tell me that it can't look like that in the future, you just can't tell me that, because we already did it, right?

So Durham, to me, has possibilities.

[gentle music] - [Thomas] Possibilities that pull more and more people to downtown Durham, [funky music] where the past is being reclaimed, reinvented, and remixed in the former tobacco factories, warehouses, and textile mills.

On the old American Tobacco campus, people gather for our community photo sharing.

[crowd talking] - Hey, look at that, look at this light.

Look at the light, Abby, look how high it is.

You hold, you help me hold that.

[chuckling] [camera shutter clicking] - So I chose this photo because it's important and represents our family, as it started early.

My husband and I have been together for 20 years, we were high school sweethearts.

And it also shows him starting his career as a police officer for the city of Durham.

- I knew I wanted to be a part of making the community great.

I've seen the place grow so much.

From having abandoned buildings all downtown, no one would even be downtown, to now fightin' for parkin' places, it's grown so much.

Durham is a place that people are coming just because it's so good, so much diversity, so many things to do.

[camera shutter clicking] - My grandmother and grandfather were from the Cherokee tribe in Pembroke, North Carolina and they migrated to Roxboro.

This is the oldest photo that we have in our family line.

He was a sharecropper and she was a seamstress, she made all the clothes for everybody in her community.

- I've never seen a photo on cardboard before.

Well, it means a lot.

I didn't know that we had Native American in our family history, so it wasn't until we sat down and started piecing together photos that I really understood who was in the photo and how far back our family history reaches here in North Carolina.

[gentle music] - [Thomas] Family roots run deep in North Carolina.

You can feel it in the soil.

When the land is the land of your ancestors, it has a special resonance.

[gentle music] The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation is one of the few tribes in North Carolina to reclaim its ancestral home.

- This is our traditional powwow circle.

This is marked off because this is the dance circle and we enter from this gate and it's filled with dancers from all nations.

It's just a beautiful thing when you see all the colors and people dancing and having a good time.

And you can just feel the power of the ancestors, especially when you're dancing and your fringe sort of brushes the ground, it's sort of like you're saying hello to your ancestors.

[gentle music] - [Thomas] The Occaneechi Band bought back these tribal lands in 2004.

How did it feel to get this land back?

- When you walk out here, you feel the sacredness of it, you just feel their power.

People often say when they drive through the gates, they feel like that enveloping of love, [laughs] they feel like they're being loved.

- Why did you move back from Connecticut?

- My aunt Bunk, who was my father's sister, she wrote me a letter and she said in the letter that I had to come home and take care of the elders.

I did come home, that was my calling to be here because we've really moved forward in a lotta things.

- [Thomas] The tribe is building a model village and a museum.

We joined Vickie Jeffries, her daughter Morningstar, and tribal chairman Tony Hayes.

On this table are many ancestors.

Vickie, could you tell us who's the oldest ancestor?

- I think it would be probably Pat John.

[camera shutter clicking] He was my third great-grandfather.

He was a farmer, I think most of the people were farmers.

- And what does this image tell you about this ancestor?

- It tells me he was tough.

[laughs] Yeah, he was like really tough and just by the piercing eyes there, I just feel that he was someone that just knew exactly what he needed to do to keep his family together.

[gentle music] - My dad was the local business guy.

He was the guy that had all the dry goods that all the farmers came and he ran tabs for all the farmers so that they could buy dry goods and food and pay on, for the winter and then they'd pay him when the spring crops came in.

His name was William Clyde Hayes.

And I'm William Anthony Hayes, I'm the firstborn son of him.

And this picture is actually him looking at me but my mom said I was so ugly, she didn't wanna put me in a picture.

[laughing] - You're joking.

- No, I'm not kidding.

In fact, when I was born, my mom said, "You need to take that kid back 'cause he's not mine."

[laughing] So this is a favorite picture of mine because he died relatively young.

He really didn't live long enough to see the real revitalization and the fruits of the tribes.

- The next photograph.

- This is my mom, Montreese Little Bean Carter Jeffries.

She was something but she taught me a lot about survival and that if you think you don't have any food, go in your pantry, you can make a meal out of what you had.

That's why we always called thunder cloud.

- Did she ever hear you call her thunder cloud?

- No, we, oh no, uh-uh.

[laughing] It didn't even come out of our mouths, you know.

No, no, we would never call her thunder cloud.

But everybody in the whole neighborhood called her mama.

You know, that was it, it was mama.

- She would teach you how to do things for yourself, so I learned a lot wit' her.

So she made sure you had that in you.

- And you have pictures of your family here, too.

- Yeah, I do, this is the matriarch of my family.

You know, the Indian culture is primarily a matriarchal culture, and we have very strong women that have led the way since the beginning of time.

Like Vickie's mom, this woman was a warrior.

- I hear the emotion in your voice when you talk about your mom.

- Oh, you know, she's been dead for 20 years and I'm still very respectful and still very afraid of her.

[laughing] - That's native women, period.

[laughing] Native women are very vocal and they will not hesitate to tell you how they feel.

- Without the strong women, I don't think that the Indian culture would be nearly as strong and certainly not nearly as creative.

[gentle music] - So how do you feel about your mom's mission and what's happening here?

Are you a part of it, how does-- - I am a part of it, I love what's she's doin' 'cause she's really brought the tribe back to life.

Even with me gettin' back into the culture, so she has helped me get back with rituals and all kinds of things, the language.

I wanna be able to want the generations to still keep this land goin' 'cause it means a lot to me.

I think we need to keep passin' it on to generations.

[camera shutter clicking] [camera shutter clicking] [camera shutter clicking] - The Walker side of our families go back to pre-Civil War.

This is Buckley.

- Buckley is the patriarch.

[camera shutter clicking] Buckley had two slave children that he gave to his in laws because his wife did not want their children to live in the same household.

And his slave children, Alice Walker Brooks and Mary Elizabeth Woods.

- They had 13 children.

My grandfather was one of the children.

This is a picture of his son, Alexander.

[solemn music] - I wore my tuxedo t-shirt today to remember my grandfather.

And if it wasn't for this man, who connected A and B and C and D and all the alphabet together, we would have never known that this woman who was my third grade teacher was actually my cousin that they tried to hide - Right.

[laughing] - Take that, Buckley Walker.

- Right.

- You tried to separate us, but it didn't work.

Here we are.

- Here we are.

- We figured it out and we found who was who and you know, you tried.

- Over a hundred years later.

- Over a hundred years later-- - Here we are.

- Yup, here we are, all together.

[solemn music] - So we are all human museums, this is a philosophy that I have.

We are all human museums, carrying, holding, translating secrets, identities, family, community, tradition, artifacts, stories, symbols, joys, sorrows, fears, regrets, hopes, dreams, memories, amnesia, weapons, generational trauma, and genetic deja vu.

- [Thomas] Jaki Shelton Green is North Carolina's first African American poet laureate.

Through her work, she excavates stories that are hidden and forgotten in what she calls the collective amnesia of the South.

She teaches at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies.

- What pieces of yourself are represented in your human museum?

What do you include, what do you exclude?

What is whispered and what is screamed?

The best way to construct this is to actually do, to construct a house, a human museum, with windows, with doors.

When I bought this house, I really wanted it to embody a sensibility of a family and bring in ancestral presences in and also celebrating my children's lives.

It's a space where not only am I reaching for a book but when I reach, I see something that's very familiar and dear to me.

[gentle music] - So Jaki and Michael, thank you for having me here to Jaki's home and coming to share your family albums.

- This photograph is a photograph of my father and I.

[camera shutter clicking] My father, Carnus Vincent, and that's me as a baby.

I did meet my father's sister, Aunt Lily, and I took this picture myself back in the '70s.

This aunt was blind.

- She has such amazing energy here.

What drove you to capture her in this way?

- Well, she always fascinated me as a child.

My brother and I had never met a blind person.

She would come and, of course, we would stand staring at her because she intrigued us.

Little did we know that she could actually see shadows and things so she would say, "Whatta you want?"

And we used to freak out and scatter because oops, she could see us.

- So how are you related?

[gentle music] - [Michael] My grandfather and Jaki's-- - Grandmother.

- Grandmother were brothers and sisters, brother and sister.

- I see, so you're second, I think that's second cousins.

- Second, yeah.

- Okay.

[gentle music] Both of you have referenced a lynching.

Could you tell us about that?

- Our great-grandfather.

- Caswell Holt.

- So this is a family photo but it's also something that's-- - It appeared in a newspaper.

- In a newspaper.

- Great-grandfather Caswell and one of his brothers, they were appointed deputy sheriffs for Alamance County and it's my understanding that they arrested a Caucasian female for public drunkness and as a result of that, this is when the lynching occurred.

- But Caswell survived.

- Caswell survived and he was employed by a textile mill.

- That owned him, the whole mill.

[camera shutter clicking] - [Thomas] The Holt family was renowned for manufacturing the first dyed cotton in the South, weaving the popular Alamance and Glencoe plaids.

Caswell Holt was born into slavery here at Oak Grove Plantation.

[solemn music] The house, now a museum, preserves two sides of a complicated legacy.

- When we think about Southern culture, we are connected at the hip.

You can't tell my story without telling your story and I can't tell my story without telling your story, if you happen to be white.

I think there's a crisis in Southern memory, I think that we all have collective amnesia.

[solemn music] - [Thomas] We invited descendants of the Holt family to join us.

So what are you expecting to find or what are you anticipating going in with this meeting in this particular house?

- I think Michael and I know what it looks like for us but I think the question is how the other side of the Holt family will embrace this notion of us showing up in a world that has historically been occupied by them in the telling of the story.

- So I'm Thomas Allen Harris-- - Hi, I'm Jim Wooten.

- Jim.

- Nice to meet you.

- Good to meet you.

- I'm Jaki Shelton Green.

- Nice to meet you, Jaki.

- So who is in this photograph?

- This is Ian Holt, he's known as the textile pioneer of Alamance County.

[camera shutter clicking] And again, he was my three great-grandfather and my mother and my aunt's great-great-grandfather.

- You organized this, how should we go through this album?

- Okay, well this is James Henry Holt Sr.'s son, James Henry Holt Jr., whom I am named after.

And there is one more photo here that I was going to show.

This is my great-grandfather, again, James Henry Holt Sr. and each of, he had seven sons, and each of his sons had a mill.

- [Thomas] Each of them had their own mill?

- [Jim] Right, each one had their own mill.

- [Thomas] Did they have their own special character, each of the mills?

- Well, the one that James Henry Holt Sr. owned was Glencoe and they actually made the plaid.

- The Glencoe plaid.

- Yeah, the Glencoe plaid, correct.

[solemn music] - Hi, Bill.

- Hey Thomas, how are you?

Nice to see you.

- Fine, thanks.

Thanks for having us up here at the museum.

- Hey Jaki, how are you?

Nice to see you again.

- Thank you.

[solemn music] - [Bill] And then we have Caswell, this was an 1859 list, Caswell was 27 years old at that time.

Of course, these are tax values so this was the tax value-- - What year was this?

- For the time.

- 1859.

- And how much, what was his tax value?

- $700.

- $700.

- Which, as skilled laborer, that was a relatively high value for the time period.

You know, Caswell had become extremely important to the history of the county because he was appointed the first black deputy in the county during reconstruction.

He was targeted by the Klan because of that on two different occasions, the second occasion he was actually shot, but he survived all of that and he would go to finally testify before the United States Senate about Klan activities here in the local area, and that did result in the arrest of several Klan perpetrators here in the local area.

- [Thomas] Caswell Holt of Alamance County.

Why is he in this exhibition?

How did you decide where to put him in this exhibition?

- Well we are trying to tell both the story of the Holt family who were involved with textiles as well as we are trying to tell the story of all of the slave families who were living on this particular farm at one time, too.

And since Caswell in particular is so important to the history of the county, we decided that we should focus in on some of his activities as well.

- So, for me, this is more than just a moment to look at his picture, it's far more than a moment.

But to be able to say to him, "Thank you."

Like Michael was saying, that I am grateful for what I believe that I carry his DNA, that DNA of perseverance, that DNA of pushing through and standing up in who you know you are.

And I think that's why he was a formidable man of color during slavery 'cause he stood up for who he knew he was, a human being.

And that's all we can do, that's all any of us can do, is stand up in our human-ness.

So, it is a moment, thank you for letting me have a moment, but yeah, it's quite a moment.

[solemn music] - [Thomas] Thank you, Jaki.

- Well it makes me feel very good to hear your story and your feelings about your ancestors, too.

And it really brings us a lot closer together by what you have to say.

And I appreciate hearing your story and your thoughts.

- [Thomas] Two families, tied together by a common history.

[camera shutter clicking] Remembering Caswell Holt opens the potential to add context and healing to the past.

Here in Mebane, North Carolina, close to where Jaki grew up, [camera shutter clicking] stories and values from the past are in danger of being forgotten as newer, younger, and hipper transplants move into old spaces and make their mark on the town.

[film rewinding] [jazz music] But lives in other historically segregated towns like Oxford, where the past is always present, remain closely intertwined as its residents push forward together.

[jazz music] Stephanie Velazquez May returned to Oxford to run the Granville County History Museum.

How far back does your family go in Oxford?

- The '60s.

[jazz music] - Wow, look at this.

Nice little shops here.

- Yeah, it's kind of interesting that This N That and The Painted Ox are next to each other 'cause they represent totally different things.

This is more of a traditional, typical store that you would see here in Oxford but The Painted Ox is more eclectic, it has artwork that's abstract, so it's very different from the traditional taste of Oxford people.

- But there are people moving from Durham here?

- Yes.

- Why is that?

- Well, it's primarily because of the real estate.

It's not as expensive, it's quieter, it relieves people from that fast pace of lifestyle that Durham and Raleigh offer.

[jazz music] - At the home of Oxford's mayor, Jackie Sergent, we join Stephanie and other town residents to share photos.

Stephanie, you were born here in Oxford.

- Well it all started with my grandfather out in the tobacco fields, [camera shutter clicking] [gentle music] and then my father.

I take away from a lot of their experiences here that life isn't easy but that's okay, if you work hard, you can get to places, you can go where you want to, and that is why I'm here.

- And you have a family that you're starting.

- Yes, yes.

- And so, tell us the story.

- I thought these images represented what a marriage does, it unifies people from all different backgrounds.

You can see my parents, us being an interracial marriage, Zach's parents being an interracial marriage as well.

- So what we're seeing is a blended, a really blended family.

- Definitely.

The ceremony was actually held in these same tobacco fields where you're holding, yes.

- Oh my gosh, they're all connected?

- Yes, they're all connected.

[jazz music] - And where's your husband work?

- He actually works in the beer industry.

- Which is a rising industry in North Carolina.

- Yeah, all the micro breweries around here, it's just booming, it's huge.

So this is my husband, Zach May, he works here at the brewery Tobacco Wood.

- Hey Zach-- - Nice to meet you.

- Thanks for having us here.

- Yeah, I appreciate you guys comin' out.

- What did you think about Oxford before you moved here and how things have changed?

- So I didn't even know what Oxford was.

I didn't even know there was a Oxford, North Carolina.

- So are you both kinda like the new face of Oxford?

- Definitely a different face, maybe not the new, but different.

- So we've been here about two years now permanently.

I've seen it change dramatically.

New restaurants are here, you're seeing new faces pop in every single day.

The cool thing about the brewery is it's bringing people from the Durham and Raleigh area, so they're coming out and seeing what Oxford has to offer.

[jazz music] - Spurred by a blending of newcomers and long time residents, Oxford is redefining old narratives around family and community, around us and them, creating a new unity, a new flavor.

Ellisia, we have this idea of the blended family or extended family, so tell us a story of your family.

- I'll start here, so this is my great-grandmother, Calleigh.

[camera shutter clicking] She's actually mulatto, so she's a product of a slave, her mother was a slave, and the slave owner.

So that's my great-grandmother and this is my grandmother.

You can still tell here that there's blended family.

Being fair-skinned, green eyes, finer hair, there was a lotta taunting that she experienced, unfortunately.

But it kept us forward-thinking about being open to all type of people, so that's something that I was taught at a young age just because of where I originated from.

- [Thomas] So Rob, you are the proprietor of the Ace Hardware store.

- I am the ex-proprietor.

If I could, this is the photo of my father and myself [ethereal music] and my brother and two of our employees.

- Wow, show me that, lemme see that photograph.

So let's see if I can guess where you are, you're here.

- That's me, in the lighter.

- Okay.

- My father and mother told us to respect people, regardless of color, race, religion.

We were successful in the hardware business because he treated everybody the same.

- You know, Thomas, there's more than just a store there.

That's where you go in with a couple residents and you have conversation.

You talk more than the part.

You go in for a screw and you stay an hour.

- Harry, tell us your Oxford story.

- I picked, this picture is a picture of my mother.

[ethereal music] and my mom raised four boys by herself, my dad died when I was seven, so she really held the glue to everything that I am and everything that my brothers are.

I had a teacher who kind of, we just really connected.

This is them, this is mom and dad in this picture, Doe and Betty Larson, they went to my mom and said they would like to be a part of my life.

My mom, without missing a beat, said yes.

That's the type of mom I have.

And so I incorporated a whole new family but it began with my mom, who allowed that to happen, which really changed my life.

[ethereal music] - Mayor Jackie, you consider yourself a newcomer even though, or you're considered a newcomer even though you've been here 30 years?

- Yes, it would be, I would be what's called a come here and not a from here, is that right?

[laughing] So my origins here on this table go back to my parents.

This picture, which is, I think, a very beautiful and happy picture, [ethereal music] is my mother before World War II.

This is what is known as an Arbeitsbuch, so my mother was the only person in her family to survive the Holocaust.

- And when did you learn this story?

- You know, some people that went through the Holocaust are able to talk easily, my mother was not one of them, and so it's really wonderful to hear the histories here at the table because in my youth, my memory was not to ask too many questions, so the history came out in five minute windows.

- How do you see Oxford as different than other kinds of places in North Carolina?

- That's what Oxford's a blending pod now, it's a mixture of everybody.

To me, it's the new South.

We're gonna beat the new suburban Raleigh or Durham but with a different flavor.

[ethereal music] - This distinguished gentleman here is my great-great-uncle, Benjamin Franklin Hawkins.

[camera shutter clicking] He sorta represents the first generation that we are able to document of those that lived under the institution of slavery and became free.

He was always immaculately dressed, as you can see here.

But he was also of mixed ancestry.

And he spent a great deal of his time, really, in the trade, serving as what we would call a mason or brickmason, and he built many of the townships in East North Carolina.

I first saw this photograph as a little, small child and I was just amazed because I was told, one thing I was lucky about, my relatives always had relatives hangin' on the walls as a point of inspiration and pride.

- This picture is a photo of me in Seoul, Korea and this photo's important to me because I was here with two of my friends, one of which who is American and I thought it was a nice foreshadow picture because two years later, I would immigrate to America, so this photo's very meaningful to me.

[gentle music] - This is me sitting on our wonderfully colorful couch.

I'm wearing a traditional Korean outfit and it was important for my parents to always put me in traditional Korean outfits, to have me do a lotta traditional Korean cultural elements while being in this country.

So it was a way for them to keep me connected to what their cultural experience was.

So this is a picture we took, I surprised Gina on the day that I proposed, by having her family and my family meet us in Atlanta at a restaurant.

So this kinda, for us, just showed how our families coming together is very important to us, culturally speaking.

For them, it was a little bit of the American dream coming into fruition, they kinda see the fruits of their hard work and labor equaled their children having good jobs, opportunity, and then getting married.

And so this was an opportunity for us to all celebrate as a family.

Idea of taking pictures and seeing these images that showed us family is so much more than just who's around you all the time, family's who you choose to live life with.

So I just love idea of picture and families.

After graduate school, I had a job offer to come up to the Durham area to do work as Associate Pastor and then just fell head over heels in love with the city of Durham and decided to plant a church in the city to be a benefit to the community.

I love that the book of Psalms, that's if it's taught us anything, it's that it's good and healthy to weep with each other, to mourn with each other, to feel a full range of human emotion, but we also need to be with the ones who truly understand what it means to celebrate.

We have reason to celebrate.

- [Thomas] In a growing and changing Durham, a Korean American pastor of a Southern Baptist congregation is par for the course.

Pastor Lawrence Yoo creates a welcoming community at Waypoint Church, embracing the idea that for a greater Durham to thrive, its immigrant communities must also thrive.

[camera shutter clicking] [gentle music] - This photo is a picture of me and a part of the Senghi family.

I'm wearing one of the Congolese women's attire and they gave us, actually our whole family, Congolese outfits to wear with them, so we sometimes coordinate outfits and wear these together at church, just to show that we're a family.

Pastor Yoo founded Sushioki.

The restaurant is an outgrowth of the church's ministry to integrate new immigrants into the Durham community.

- Well sir, the beautiful thing about restaurants is that it's kinda like an open door type job opportunity where people without maybe the skill sets can come in and learn a job skill set here.

Especially comin' from another country, to learn what the work culture is like in America.

And so we thought Sushioki would be the best kinda avenue to make that happen.

- This is, in some ways, helping to set people up, kind of the future of Durham, the future of this area.

- I truly believe that you empower other people in the community, you empower the whole community.

And we set you up early on, you can empower others as well.

And the whole community gets lifted up.

- So how do you guys know each other?

Letitia, how do you know Lawrence?

- Lawrence is my pastor.

- Ah, okay.

- He was one of the people for me who helped my family, who helped my kids, for many things in America.

- Oh, that's them.

- Oh, so beautiful, look at your beautiful family.

[laughs] Letitia, when you look at this picture, what does it make you feel or what does it make you think?

- It makes me very happy because Lawrence family is my family because he helped me so much.

- Lawrence.

- It's been our blessing as our family to know and love this family.

We love them so much and they've given us so much more than we could ever imagine.

- I am a mother, I have a daughter named Eden, and she has this exact smile.

[camera shutter clicking] I've found that my grandmother told all of us stories about family that stood us up straight, that made us walk with dignity and pride and strength and possibility and wonder.

And so, these pictures are a touchstone for me to remember who I am and who I can be.

- I've got a lotta photos to share but I chose this one, it's my dad and um.

So he's special to me.

He flew 72 combat missions in World War II, was a prisoner of war missin' in action but his life didn't stop there.

He's done a whole lot with his life, he's been a really great example for me and my family.

And I said I wasn't gonna cry today.

But anyway, you asked me why.

- [Thomas] Durham has a history of being a place where people can express their full selves.

Paulie Murray, poet, civil rights trailblazer, and ordained Episcopal priest, grew up here.

As these photos show, Paulie Murray lived life blurring gender lines and speaking up for the voiceless.

This homegrown saint helped pave the way for Justin Clapp [gentle music] and this community of drag kings and queens.

[gentle music] [cheering] - Hello!

How are you all doin' tonight?

[cheering] You actin' like you ain't been to Durham before.

[whooping] I don't know what's wrong with me, I literally do not know what's wrong with me.

Are you all having a good time?

[cheering] [gentle music] - Let's put all the images on the table, create one album.

- This is where we found family, in a different way, because it has all of the generations of the house.

[camera shutter clicking] [gentle music] This is us at one of our little family reunions where we realized we didn't really take a lot of photos together out of drag.

That's just a really good photo that we're all very proud of.

And there's not a lotta story behind it other than we all tear up a little bit when we see this photo.

- So it's your house.

- Yes.

[gentle music] I am definitely the matriarch and we've worked really hard over the past few years to build it up and really do some social justice drag in Durham and to eventually take over the world.

- Close, came here.

[laughing] - [Thomas] Even matriarchs have doting moms.

- Justin has always been a performer.

Wherever he's goin', I'm like, "Yay, Justin!"

And that's my role, you know, that is my role.

Run with it, baby.

- Mmhm.

- It's like a team, them in that club, and they are the heart, and not just their dress-wise, the heart of Durham.

- Why Durham?

- Well, Durham has always been this cultural capital in North Carolina and it's been the city that was a beacon of hope for a very long time.

- We had some wins on Tuesday.

[cheering] We had some wins, some wins for queer people, for brown people, for women.

[cheering] And quite frankly, a win for a queer person really, in this context, is a win for everyone.

- [Justin] When we got started, we wanted to build a space where race, gender, size, presentation, regardless of who you are, you felt safe, welcomed, supported.

Durham was hungry for drag and the type of drag we do.

It's almost like Durham found us.

It's not that we discovered Durham.

But we were already existing here, we were already a part of a community and the community was already rich.

[rock music] All of my drag dreams would never have been realized in any other city.

[rock music] - I wanna start with this photo right here.

This is the photo of my grandparents.

This is John Edmund Ausby and Bessie Wallace Ausby.

[camera shutter clicking] These are my father's parents.

And this photo began the search for me to go back to find out where I came from.

And so, I look at this picture, I see them as young people just getting married in this photo, not even knowing that they would have 12 children later, knowing that you are a part of history.

Even though I'm not in books and nobody knows who we are, we are still part of this history of North Carolina and to be able to share that with my family, extended family, is a blessing.

That good?

Okay.

[clapping] - All right.

- All right.

- Okay.

- Okay, all right.

So one thing that we always did growing up, we always remember, is every time we crossed the North Carolina line coming into North Carolina, we had to sing the North Carolina song and state the poem.

- Do you want us to sing it?

All right, ready?

- [Both singing] ♪ Carolina, Carolina ♪ heaven's blessing so tender ♪ While we live, we will cherish, protect, and defend her ♪ ♪ Hoorah, hoorah, the old North state forever ♪ ♪ Hoorah, hoorah, the good old North state ♪ - Yay.

- Yay.

[laughing] - [producer] That was amazing!

[laughing] [funky music] - [Thomas] We came to North Carolina and found that family runs deeper than blood and kinship.

It's also the people we meet, care about, and come to love who make up our neighborhood, our city, our tribe.

We found a Southern place that defies old stereotypes.

Challenges always accompany change, but on this journey, we've discovered that y'all means all of us.

[camera shutter clicking] - [Thomas] Next time on Family Pictures USA: - So, this is a picture of your dad in the store.

- This is where my father's record shop was on 12th street.

- Right here?

- Right here.

- I just remember in the floor, all of this detritus, all of this muck and mire, and I felt my father's defeat.

It wasn't just looting, in my opinion, that killed him.

It was all that he had gone through.

çjazzy music] ♪ ♪