page_title: Walltown, Durham, North Carolina
section_title: Foundation and Jim Crow
hierarchical_section_title: Walltown, Durham, North Carolina / History / Foundation and Jim Crow
caption_attribution_description: English: Old barber shop in the Walltown neighborhood of Durham, North Carolina
context_page_description: Walltown is a historically African-American neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina. The neighborhood is located between West Durham Historic District and Trinity Historic District, north of Duke University East Campus. Historically, the neighborhood was a working class neighborhood for African-American employees of Duke University and local tobacco and textile mills in Durham. Walltown was named after George Wall, a former enslaved person, who was one of the first people to purchase a lot in the area. Members of the community were active in the Civil Rights movement and desegregation in Durham. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Walltown has been faced with gentrification.
context_section_description: Walltown is named after George Wall, a formerly enslaved man who worked as a custodian at Trinity College (later renamed Duke University). Wall, born a slave to the grandfather of a Trinity College physics professor, worked as a farm laborer before obtaining his freedom. Wall and his family settled near the college after its relocation to Durham from Trinity and purchased a lot nearby, building a house in 1906. The area expanded and became known as Walltown, serving as a residential neighborhood for service staff at Duke University and workers at the local tobacco mills. In 1910 the first church was built in the neighborhood and named Wall Street Baptist Church, in honor of Wall.
  In 1948 two female residents, who were members of the Durham Negro Youth Federation, led a door-to-door voter registration drive in Walltown and Hickstown to encourage African-American citizens to vote in an election for Durham County Commissioner in which one of the candidates was an African-American. In 1937 the Walltown Community Council was formed and two years later had an all-female leadership team. In 1955 Walltown residents awarded Frizelle Daye a gold plate, presented by Rev. L.M. Gooch, and appointed him the "Bronze Mayor". Daye's wife, Callie, was a local beautician and head of the Walltown Housewives League in the 1940s and 1950s. She wrote a column for The Carolina Times titled Walltown Notes. She later chaired the Durham NAACP's membership drive in the 1960s.
  In May 1958 the first legal challenge against racial segregation in Durham Public Schools was filed by Rachel Richardson, a resident of Walltown, and Evelyn McKissick, wife of Floyd McKissick. Many of the anti-segregation protesters in Durham were residents of Walltown.
caption: An old barber shop on Knox Street.
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