"EVERY EVIDENCE OF OUR PROGRESS": THE NORTH CAROLINA NEGRO STATE FAIR, 1879-1898

Abstract

Few historical studies examine the black industrial fair: annual events created by black leaders, comprised of elements of the American agricultural fair as well as World'sFairs, designed to exhibit the progress of the race since Emancipation. This study attempts to address this gap in the literature by focusing on the North Carolina Negro State Fair, established in 1879 by Charles Hunter and the men of the North Carolina Industrial Association. The fair functioned as an annual, temporary, vindicationist exhibition of black progress in the state for almost fifty years. Organizational records, personal correspondence, and local newspaper articles were used to examine three late nineteenth-century fairs utilizing public history methods and concepts rooted in memory studies. This examination clarifies the socio-political factors at play in the lives of black North Carolinians post-Reconstruction, and interrogates the dynamic and fluid nature of the state'sblack community.