Community Celebrates New Vision for West Southern Pines

This article was first published in The Pilot on Feb. 26, 2022.

There was standing room only as dozens of community members filed into the gymnasium of the former Southern Pines Primary School on Saturday afternoon to celebrate its procurement by the Southern Pines Land and Housing Trust.

After two and a half years and an ongoing legal battle, the Land and Housing Trust completed the purchase of the former West Southern Pines school campus in mid-December. In its new life, the property will become the West Southern Pines Center for African American History, Cultural Arts and Business.

Many in the audience Saturday had attended the school themselves, or had parents or grandparents who had walked the halls in its various past iterations. But the sense of camaraderie in the room extended beyond those who had personal connections with the school.

“It is a big day for Southern Pines and it is a big day in Southern Pines,” Southern Pines Mayor Carol Haney said at the event. “I want to thank all of you who refused to let the vision or the dream die.”

The center will feature existing facilities of the former school, such as the gymnasium, to be used for communal events. Other future plans include space for a community health center, retail and restaurants, offices, educational and entrepreneurial programs and a theater.

The centerpiece of the project is an African American heritage museum with art and history exhibits that celebrates the Black heritage and culture of West Southern Pines.

“The gemstone is actually to create a museum to tell the ‘Jimtown’ story and the West Southern Pines story in all its rich and cultural significance,” Land and Housing Trust Chair Vincent Gordon said.

West Southern Pines (“Jimtown”) was one of the first incorporated African American towns in North Carolina. Gordon said the goal is to transform the property into a modern-day nucleus of West Southern Pines. He aims to revitalize it to showcase the property’s history, especially as the site of a former Rosenwald school that educated Black children. Gordon pointed to the historical symmetry of the moment, from the community having raised the necessary funds for the Rosenwald school in the 1920s to the present county-wide fundraising efforts for the Land and Housing Trust to purchase the school.

Indeed, the celebration attracted residents from Aberdeen and Pinehurst, not just Southern Pines. The festivities, which lasted more than three hours, began with remarks from Gordon. He took his time thanking the individuals and groups who fought to transform the West Southern Pines Center from an idea to a reality.

“When it was time to vote, somehow four school board members showed courage in our favor,” Gordon said. “In founding, when there was a lawsuit, we had the faith and the tenacity and fought for our cause. What we had was the community of Southern Pines.”

Gordon said that the entire process of building and designing the center would take more than a year to complete. He said that the Land and Housing Trust is working on applying for a special-use permit from the town to get the process going. In the meantime, he said that the gym, auditorium and park can continue to be used for community events.

At the ceremony, Gordon also unveiled a 1950s-era painting of the original Rosenwald school building. It would be the first exhibition as part of the new museum, he said.

Elders who had attended the school when it was a segregated high school for Black students in the 1950s shared their experiences walking its halls nearly 60 years ago. They spoke of how their education there gave them the tools to succeed in their future endeavors and thanked their teachers for looking after their well-being as high school students.

There was plenty of singing and dancing at Saturday’s celebration as well. Community leaders gave performances and encouraged audience participation. The performances were often bittersweet, celebrating the new moment in West Southern Pines history while looking back to the struggles of slavery and segregation faced by the Black community.

Rev. Dr. Paul Murphy, a member of the Southern Pines Town Council and pastor of a church just down the street, gave a clarinet performance of “Wade in the Water,” a song first sung by African Americans in slavery.

Mitch Capel, performing as his entertainment persona “Gran’daddy JuneBug,” told a story about farm animals to illustrate the importance of caring for one another regardless of individual status.

“You might not think that your neighbor’s problem is your problem. But believe me that when things like drugs and gangs, red-lining and environmental racism and economic racism and all these things come to our community — you might not think it’s going to affect your side of the town or your side of the world, but believe me, it does. It affects everybody in the community.”

Capel called the school campus “hallowed ground” for the Black community, and he noted that Saturday’s ceremony coincided with what would have been his father Felton Capel’s 95th birthday. Felton Capel, who died in 2018, was one of Southern Pines’ business and political leaders who also led the way with friends to integrate much of Southern Pines, including the Sunrise Theater and local golf courses.

A brief ribbon-cutting ceremony followed the celebration. Community members of all ages gathered around the former school steps to witness the momentous moment in West Southern Pines history. The crowd counted off in unison for Gordon to cut the massive ribbon. Dozens of cameras snapped pictures as it fell to the ground.