Hargraves Community Center
You may think of a community center as something like your local YMCA. Hargraves is that and so much more. Community-built and community-led, Hargraves is the heart of Northside. In 1939, with fiscal support from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), resident brick masons and carpenters began construction on the “Negro Community Center.” In the midst of World War II, UNC would host the Navy’s preflight training program but not the members of its first Black band—the B1 Navy band. In order to maintain segregation on UNC’s campus and to create barracks for the band members, the Town of Chapel Hill funded completion of what would become called the Roberson Community Center, and eventually, Hargraves.
Listen to former Hargraves Center Director, Nate Davis recount the long legacy of Hargraves mentorship he inherited from the previous director and icon of the local freedom movement, Fred Battle.
