A HISTORIAN'S COAST 



Behind the Veil 



By David Cecelski 



ty brings the past to life in ways that books never can. When a 96-year-old New Bern 

 fells stories about slave grandparents, the time of human bondage seems like yesterday. 

 Through the memories of African- American elders, we can revisit the influenza epidemic of 1919, 



the maraudings of the Ku Klux Klan and the birth of the civil rights movement. Vacant tenant 

 houses and tobacco farms come to life; displaced victims of the great fire of 1922 are finally heard. 



Continued 



Segregated water fountains were fixtures of the Jim Crow era. 



Photo courtesy of the Center for Documentary Studies 



