The future is an open-book test. We need only flip through the pages of history to uncover the best course of action to make the world a better place for all those who live in it and for all those who will inhabit it after us. The Heritage Alliance Project (HAP) is a community-based, nonprofit organization that embraces that truth and seeks to take steps at the local level to preserve the history of Mocksville and to cultivate a beautiful and safe future for the East Depot and Mill Street area.
Organization: A Collaborative Effort
When Mocksville’s J.P. Green Mill was bought by Wayne Farms (now Sanderson Farms), a desire for the conservation of the East Depot and Mill Street area bloomed in the hearts of local residents. A new business meant an increase in traffic which meant a decrease in safety for pedestrians and a rising concern about negative environmental effects the new business could potentially cause. Folks gathered together to go to the town board to express these worries. Such a large crowd gathered that their presence drew the attention of the WXII News Channel. Alice Brown, who would become the corresponding secretary of HAP, said that she hadn’t seen the community unite so strongly since the effort to rename Campbell Road to Martin Luther King Jr. Road. The community members quickly realized that they needed a spokesperson. Sharon Anderson, who would become the executive director of HAP, became that person.
Another instrumental person in the beginning stages of the organization was Pastor Frederick Terry who volunteered to be a leader. Terry was the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church who spearheaded the group coming together to address their concerns. He hosted Zoom meetings to accommodate anyone who might have lived a little further away and to uphold health standards in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. His Zoom meetings didn’t last forever, but, “instead of the ball dropping, HAP picked it up.”
Who is HAP?
The Heritage Alliance Project was formally recognized as a nonprofit organization in 2023 and celebrated its first anniversary in August 2024. But 2023 was far from the beginning. The group had been working for years before HAP achieved official nonprofit status. All board members attended many workshops geared to equip them with the skills they needed to run a successful organization, and up until they achieved nonprofit status, the board members held meetings to discuss and uncover what would eventually become HAP’s mission statement. According to the nonprofit’s website, “HAP’s mission is to collaborate with various entities to facilitate the preservation of history and advocate for beautification and safety in the East Depot/Mill Street community.” These three tenets inform the nonprofit’s goals, actions, and achievements. “In honoring the past,” said Tamela Tatum, president of the nonprofit, “that’s the history piece. So, one of our goals is to preserve history in a way that is displayed artistically on the Corinthian Lodge building downtown which…is a historical building, especially for the African American community…The [goal] is to preserve the history of the area, not just African American businesses, but for all the businesses that were in the area years ago. Right now, we’re compiling the businesses that have been there.”
Community members gather at a fire safety education event. Photo courtesy of the Heritage Alliance Project.
A Rich History
In the past, the East Depot and Mill Street community was full of booming businesses and successful enterprises that people still remember to this day. HAP is actively collaborating with individuals belonging to various generations to excavate memories of businesses that used to be there, including some that were operating even before the board members themselves can remember!
HAP and their colleagues have been researching these businesses of the past with the hopes of creating a mural. Across the Corinthian Lodge building could possibly span an artistic rendition honoring the history of the community–travelers boarding the train at the depot, people hauling home furniture from Drexel Heritage, customers getting flour from the mill, friends picking up some produce from Allen Grocery, diners sitting down for a soul food meal at Alice Briton’s cafe, kids buying some candy from Martin Brothers, a young couple out on a date to dance to the jukebox music in Reverend Holman’s pool room. While the group may not be able to capture every single business, the goal is to honor what it looked like back in the day.
Below is a list of former businesses and establishments of the East Depot / Mill Street community that HAP has compiled:
- Two furniture plants: Drexel Heritage, and Hanes Furniture (the latter was owned by Don Headen).
- The railroad station itself was important because of its role in connecting Salisbury to Winston-Salem. Travelers would get off to visit Mocksville and Advance.
- Allen Grocery
- Two feed mills: J.P. Green Milling, and Holly Farms
- Shoaf Concrete
- Martin Brothers Store
- Bill’s Cab
- At the corner of Depot and Williams, the first African American school in the area before a Rosenwald School was built.
- Corinthian Lodge Building which held Mr. Duff Peoples and Mr. Leroy Dulin’s barber shop, Evelina Garrett’s beauty shop, and Tom Gather’s meat market
- Alice Briton’s cafe
- Pool room owned by Reverend Holman
- S.W. Brown Wholesale
- Shiloh Baptist Church
- Mt. Zion Holiness Church
- Second Presbyterian Church
This list is far from exhaustive, and there is more research to be done. But in the meantime, HAP is staying busy.
A Vibrant Present
While it is vital to honor history, that isn’t where HAP’s mission stops. With the introduction of Wayne-Sanderson Farms, pressing questions arose. What can be done to address the present? What can be done to immediately impact the community? The new business meant an influx of trucks and a higher volume of traffic in an area where there are many pedestrians, especially children who ride the bus to school. That’s when, Tatum said, “Talks about the pavilion came up.” This accomplishment is a shining jewel in HAP’s crown, reported on vastly in local publishings, both print and online. This collaborative effort of HAP, members of the community, the Town of Mocksville, and Wayne-Sanderson Farms demonstrates a combination of two of the nonprofit’s tenets: safety and beautification. Since the construction of the pavilion, children now have a safe place to wait for the bus in inclement weather, walkers have a place to take a rest, and parade-goers have a comfortable place to sit out of the sun.
Everything that HAP does is for the betterment of everyone, which is why all of its efforts center on collaboration. “The community has changed a lot in the last ten years,” Tatum said. “[The] hope is to respond to what the residents communicate that they want,” as they have done in the past via surveys and listening to feedback and comments from residents. With a big heart for the residents of the East Depot / Mill Street area and its dedication to safety, the nonprofit hosted a community education day with the local fire department last fall. Residents were invited to attend fire safety courses, and they even offered CPR instruction! Because of their close attention to the needs of the community and their dedication to the beautification and safety of the area, HAP is vital to the ongoing preservation of a tight-knit community in Mocksville that benefits from educational and beautification opportunities. For example, Tatum has hopes for the nonprofit to collaborate with the Master Gardeners Club. The outcomes of this would be multi-faceted. It would give young people an opportunity to volunteer, it would offer gardening education, and it would contribute to the beautification of the area.
Local fire department providing safety education to community members. Photo courtesy of the Heritage Alliance Project.
A Prosperous Future
If Alice Brown could use one word to describe the Heritage Alliance Project, that word would be Sankofa. Sankofa is a “Twi word from the Akan Tribe of Ghana” that means looking back while moving forward. “That’s what we’re about,” Brown said. In order to make the best decisions for the future, we have to make educated decisions based on all the examples the past has to offer. If there is no history to look back on, the only steps forward into the future that can be made are uninformed ones.
A future where everyone’s experience is valued and none of it is excluded is exactly the type of future Tamela Tatum hopes that HAP’s work will create. “When I think about HAP,” Tatum said, “our board members are all African-American, but I don’t think that will always be the case. We serve the whole community. History includes everybody. We can’t exclude anybody. We are going to do what we have committed to do, which is preserve the history, safety, and beautification of the community. We will continue sharing our history and passing it down to all people.”
Community, the very thing HAP’s mission always comes back to, consists of many types of people with various needs. It consists of people with unique experiences and individual memories, all of which contribute to the intricate history that makes up a town like Mocksville all the way to the history of the entire country. “The community looks like America,” said Tatum. The Heritage Alliance Project exists to leave the community better than we found it, however big or small it may grow to be. Whether that be through more community educational events, more archival work, or perhaps even one day as the board dreams, of creating a designated place for young and old students of local history to be able to practice Sankofa and look back on the past to make the future a better place.
Photo courtesy of the Heritage Alliance Project
