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NEGRO DURHAM MARCHES ON (1948)
‘Negro Durham Marches On’: Library to preserve 1940s film documenting Hayti’s prime
December 21, 2021
"Negro Durham Marches On" is a 1948 film by Don Parisher. The film was commissioned by the Durham Business and Professional Chain (DBPC), Durham’s oldest African American business advocacy organization. By Durham County Library
DURHAM
Former state Rep. Henry “Mickey” Michaux was a student at North Carolina College (now N.C. Central University) in 1948 when the talk of the town was that Don Parrisher would be making a film about Hayti, Durham’s historic Black neighborhood.
Parrisher was a white filmmaker known for his reels documenting towns and cities across the country. The Durham Business and Professional Chain, the city’s oldest Black business advocacy group, commissioned the film to highlight the “thriving” and “self-contained” community, as Michaux calls it, and its lively business district known as “Black Wall Street.”
“In Hayti, during that era, we didn’t have to cross the tracks for anything,” he said.
Former NC Rep. Mickey Michaux
That’s exactly what, in 28 minutes, Parrisher and his crew captured in “Negro Durham Marches On.” The film, narrated over an organ soundtrack, takes viewers back to a long-gone, bustling business district largely wiped out by the development of the Durham Freeway in the late 1960s that removed hundreds of homes and dozens of the businesses featured.
Clips of a fully stocked Smith’s Grocery, washers running at Royal Cleaners, and lines that spilled out onto the sidewalk at the Regal Theater next to the Biltmore Hotel are part of a testament to Hayti’s heyday, other than the memories of those who experienced it.
“I remember,” said Michaux, now 91 years old. “I remember them all.”
‘Negro Durham Marches On’: Library to preserve 1940s film documenting Hayti’s prime
December 21, 2021
"Negro Durham Marches On" is a 1948 film by Don Parisher. The film was commissioned by the Durham Business and Professional Chain (DBPC), Durham’s oldest African American business advocacy organization. By Durham County Library
DURHAM
Former state Rep. Henry “Mickey” Michaux was a student at North Carolina College (now N.C. Central University) in 1948 when the talk of the town was that Don Parrisher would be making a film about Hayti, Durham’s historic Black neighborhood.
Parrisher was a white filmmaker known for his reels documenting towns and cities across the country. The Durham Business and Professional Chain, the city’s oldest Black business advocacy group, commissioned the film to highlight the “thriving” and “self-contained” community, as Michaux calls it, and its lively business district known as “Black Wall Street.”
“In Hayti, during that era, we didn’t have to cross the tracks for anything,” he said.
Former NC Rep. Mickey Michaux
That’s exactly what, in 28 minutes, Parrisher and his crew captured in “Negro Durham Marches On.” The film, narrated over an organ soundtrack, takes viewers back to a long-gone, bustling business district largely wiped out by the development of the Durham Freeway in the late 1960s that removed hundreds of homes and dozens of the businesses featured.
Clips of a fully stocked Smith’s Grocery, washers running at Royal Cleaners, and lines that spilled out onto the sidewalk at the Regal Theater next to the Biltmore Hotel are part of a testament to Hayti’s heyday, other than the memories of those who experienced it.
“I remember,” said Michaux, now 91 years old. “I remember them all.”
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