With Rocky Mount Mills re-opening, residents have reckoning with its slave labor, segregated past

Editor’s note: This is the second article in a three-part series exploring the redevelopment of the 200-year-old Rocky Mount Mills, and the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem in the city of Rocky Mount.

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. – Annette Tyson Xavier was only a child when her parents and uncle worked at Rocky Mount Mills back in the 1940s. Still, she remembers those days fondly.

“It was segregated. No sugarcoating it,” recalled the 76-year-old, speaking from the restored Battle House, where her long-gone relatives once passed daily en route to work. “We knew we weren’t treated equally, but we were able to do what we needed to progress. Everybody had a sense of purpose.”

Her testimony is one of many that has been recorded as part of an ongoing project led by UNC Chapel Hill into the history of the 200-year-old mill, the second oldest in North Carolina. Largely funded by Capitol Broadcasting Company (CBC) which is redeveloping the site, it’s one way to make sure the mill’s history is documented for posterity.

But perhaps more importantly, the project is also serving to preserve the heritage of the largely African-American community that worked there, dating back to the early 1800s.

“We knew that there had been slaves working at the mill prior to the Civil War, but that’s about all we knew,” said Evan Covington Chavez, Rocky Mount Mill’s development manager, who helped launch the project.

Undated photo probably from early-20th century. Unknown individual is standing above the trash rake that removes debris from the water before it flows into the mill to be used for power. Source: UNC Chapel Hill’s Community Histories Workshop.

Undated photo likely from around the mid-20th century. The unknown individual is moving the raw cotton bales for processing at the mill. Source: UNC Chapel Hill’s Community Histories Workshop.

Thanks to an $85,000 injection from CBC and a federal grant, a team of researchers has launched an online digital archive to coincide with the mill’s re-opening as a mixed-used development.

The result: a treasure trove of resources that covers its early years of slave labor, the North Carolina textile industry, K-12 pedagogy, African-American genealogy, oral testimonies and more.

“We didn’t want to just put everything into one room and call it a day,” explained Covington Chavez. “We wanted it to be living, breathing and dynamic. We knew that if we didn’t do it soon, we probably would miss out on recording oral histories. That was the impetus.”

Early years of slave labor

For the last three years, a team of students working as part of UNC Chapel Hill’s Community Histories Workshop (CHW) project has been forging ahead.

Together, they’ve sifted through the bulk of the mill’s archives already donated to UNC’s Wilson Library by the mill’s long-time owners, the Battle family – including correspondence, contracts, reports, tax returns, receipts, ledgers and chattel mortgages, among other things.

“This project promotes the stories and experiences of those whose voices have been silenced or neglected,” said CHW’s project coordinator Nicole Coscolluela.

UNC Chapel Hill’s Community Histories Workshop project coordinator Nicole Coscolluela. Photo by Chantal Allam.

Part of that work has meant delving into the mill’s slave labor past. Among the discoveries: that slaves built the wood dam on the river, as well as the road and original bridge near the mill.

More difficult to uncover, however, are the specific names of slaves who worked at the mill. In official documents, slaves were assigned numbers, making it almost impossible to track their identities.

However, CHW’s slave genealogy consultant, Bernetiae Reed, isn’t giving up.

A descendant of Battle family slaves herself, she’s piecing together the family trees of a select group of slaves owned by the family. Years earlier, she managed to track down that her great-great-great grandmother, Sarah Cooper, was connected to Alicia Battle.

“I’ve been fortunate to be a part of this project and to dig more into finding what I can of that history,” she said in an interview published on the site.

She admitted, however, the process has been frustrating since almost no records can be found among the mill’s own archives. Instead, she has had to rely on other sources like oral history records. “We continue to dig,” she said. “Never give up is always a process with me. There’s always another avenue.”

Highly degraded burials and materials also confirmed a Native American settlement, likely Tuscarora, at the riverbank across from the mill. Research suggests that Native Americans also worked at the mill in various roles more than a century later.

“We don’t know the names of these employees or their tribal affiliations, but their contribution to millwork must be acknowledged,” said Coscolluela.

A segregated workforce

Fast-forward to the 1960s: After the Civil Rights Act, the mill’s workforce transformed almost overnight from primarily white labor to African American. To get a snapshot of the later years, researchers interviewed more than a dozen former mill workers still alive, meticulously collecting and scanning memorabilia to be digitized.

“Some of the best content has come from community members,” said Coscolluela. “From insights into their daily workday routine to child labor, from segregated family days to workplace injuries, there are some things that are not documented in official archival collections.”

Xavier was among those interviewed. One of her fondest memories was attending ‘family day’ when everyone got the day off. “We had sack races, barbecue, watermelon eating and bobbing for apples,” she recalled. “We had a good time. Yes, they were separate. But I didn’t get any sense of desperation in anybody. I don’t remember an unhappy time, to tell you the truth.”

She added that it was important to show the pride of the black community, not just the struggle. “To be able to work here was a prideful thing,” she maintained.

The good old days … (above and below): undated photos from a community member’s photo album, which show mill workers enjoying a Christmas party in the 1990s. Source: UNC Chapel Hill’s Community Histories Workshop.

Screenshot of Annette Tyson Xavier giving her interview for the Oral Histories Project.

A screenshot of Lo Bowen during her interview as part of UNC Chapel Hill’s Community Histories Workshop.

Ninety-two year old Lo Bowen also sat down in her living room to tell her story. She started work at the mill as a 15 year old in 1942, and eventually dropped out of school in 11th grade to work there full time.

One day, while working as a winder operator, her hand got caught in the machine, resulting in the loss of a finger on her left hand. “Then they moved me on to the weighing machines,” she recounted stoically. “All the work in the mill was hard work. There was no easy work.”

Learning from the past

Research collected has now been used to develop lesson plans for K-12 instructors.

Scan through the website, and you’ll find teaching activities covering everything from mill work and life, to North Carolina slavery laws, to segregation and civil rights — all from a local perspective.

Coscolluela said she hopes younger generations will be inspired to ask questions about their local and family history.

Another objective: to give Rocky Mount’s residents the chance to reconcile their slave labor, segregated history. “The issues of the present are rooted in the past,” she said. “A better understanding of what occurred hopefully will lead to a better future where everyone can benefit.”

Note: CBC is the parent company of WRAL TechWire