‘Still ascending’: New mural tells history of Black mill workers in GSO, memorializes the East White Oak Community Center

Featured photo: Artist Chuck Johnson recently painted this East White Oak Community Mural at Revolution Ballfield (photo by Chuck Johnson)

When Cathy Gant Hill was a child, just nine or ten years old, she remembers riding in the car with her father down Tucker Street in Greensboro and seeing the rushing highway through the leaves of the trees.

“We would call him Big Daddy, and so I would say, ‘Big Daddy, what’s over there?’” Hill recalls asking. “And he would say, ‘That’s the other side.’”

Even before she understood concepts like red lining, urban renewal or even structural racism, Hill had felt that there was something wrong, something strange about the division of communities within the city. As a young Black child, she and others who looked like her lived on one side of US Highway 29 — also known as North O. Henry Boulevard — and on the other side, white families.

“It was separate and not necessarily equal,” Hill says.

In that same neighborhood where she grew up, a community center has stood the test of time. Known as the East White Oak Community Center, the more than century-old building has a close tie to Hill’s family, which has been connected to the center for four generations. And in recent months, community efforts have amplified the importance of the building, its history and the ways in which structural racism has played a part in the city.

Standing at 1801 10^th Street in Greensboro, the white-washed, one-story building was first built in 1916 as a school for children in the community. The surrounding area was a mill-worker village for Black employees of Cone Mills. Hill’s grandfather, Truman Gant, was one of these workers who had moved to the area from Browns Summit to work at the textile plant. Now, through the trees and across the highway, Gant’s likeness is painted onto the side of a small building at Revolution Park.

Artist Chuck Johnson, who painted the mural as part of the city’s Neighborhood Arts program, had the idea to create the work after diving into the history of the city’s different textile mills. In the past, he has painted crosswalks in other mill neighborhoods that honor textile workers. This time, he wanted to bridge the divide between the white and Black neighborhoods by pulling East White Oak’s history to the Revolution Mill area.

“I saw that this area wasn’t technically part of the mill district,” he says. “It had obviously been segregated by the building of US 29 in the fifties. It cut off the Black neighborhood from the rest of the mill villages. And I thought, ‘We should do something for them.’”

In December, Johnson completed the mural which is painted onto the side of the baseball field’s outhouse. The field, which has been around for decades, was a place where Black and white workers would often gather to play ball. Outside of work, it was one of the few places where people could mix during segregation. 

In the top right corner of the mural, Johnson pays homage to this history in the form of a white baseball cap with the words, “EWO Vets” — for the East White Oak Vets, the Black baseball team that once played there. To the hat’s left, Truman Gant peers out from behind a depiction of the East White Oak Center wearing a handsome navy tux that matches the blue accents in other parts of the work. Next to him, three Black mill workers unload bunches of fabric as they prepare for their day. Underneath, the year “1916” marks the date the East White Oak Center was erected less than a mile away. In the bottom center, the East White Oak School’s former principal and two teachers sit for a portrait next to a depiction of David Richmond — one of the A&T Four — who peers out from the bottom right. Next to Richmond, a jersey number for Raynard Harrison, one of the greatest athletes to come out of the neighborhood is memorialized. And in the top right, above Richmond in cursive, the words “Freedom with Dignity” anchor the work. 

“The mural is about honoring that history of resistance,” says Karen Archia, Creative Greensboro’s coordinator of community partnerships. “It’s bringing it across US 29 and joining things that had been separated.”

On Saturday, Feb. 1 at noon, the city will celebrate the new mural at the East White Oak Community Center (1801 10th St.).

In addition to having been a resident at the mill village, Hill’s grandfather, Truman Gant, had played an integral role in keeping the community center standing for decades. While he initially moved to the village as a worker, he soon found himself getting involved in the upkeep of the building. After its role as a school, the building served for a short while as a YMCA then fell into disrepair. When the city moved to condemn it and tear it down, Gant protested the action and rallied the community to raise funds to buy it. Since 1956, the center has been community-owned. In the past 70 years, the building has served many functions within the neighborhood. It once housed a small convenience store — where Hill says she used to work part-time — hosted high school dance parties — which Hill attended with her friends — and had annual Christmas dinners. 

“The word ‘community,’ has never left the name of the East White Oak Community Center since it became a community center,” Hill says. “And if I have anything to say about it, it never will.”

In 1992, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and earlier this month, the state’s historical commission granted the center permanent easement, meaning it can never be torn down.

“It is a blessing as a resource,” says Hill, who now serves as the board chair for the center. “It is a visible reminder of what our community has endured…. All that history is personified in that building.”

In addition to the mural at the ballfield, Johnson also helped turn a storage room within the center — the space that was once the convenience store where Hill sold candy and detergent to neighbors — into a community art space. He cleaned out the room, built shelves, bought art supplies and installed desks so anyone from the community could come and create. The hope is that the room will inspire future generations to become artmakers. Hill says they want to use the space for additional enrichment activities as well. 

As the descendant of those who worked to keep the historic building alive, Hill says she can’t wait to see what the future holds.

“It was a safe space, and it’s not as vibrant as it once was, but we’re getting there,” she says. “We’re still ascending.” 

Attend the celebration of the mural and new art center on Saturday, Feb. 1 at noon at the East White Oak Community Center (1801 10th St.). Learn more about the center at eastwhiteoakcc.org.