Posted to the Charlotte Observor by Ann Doss Helms
Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008

Profiles of African American schools, churches, universities and leaders in the decades after emancipation are now available online through the State Library of North Carolina.

The library recently posted the full 444-page book “An Era of Progress and Promise,” written in 1910 by W.N. Hartshorn. Online users can read the book or browse the list of institutions and individuals profiled:

Among the profiles: Charlotte's Biddle University, which eventually became Johnson C. Smith University; the Rev. H.L. McCrorey, Biddle's president; and Bishop George Clinton of Charlotte, an AME Zion Church leader whose article “Greatest Needs of the Negro Race” is included in the book.
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The class of 1943 graduates from Palmer Memorial Institute, now the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, a North Carolina State Historic Site. (Photo courtesy of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources)