Piedmont Airlines used the DC-3 aircraft to begin sen ice in 1948.
Image courtesy of the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer.
Greensboro, and Charlotte. It was followed
by Interstate 95 through Rocky Mount and
Fayetteville, Interstate 40 between the
Tennessee line and Wilmington, and
Interstate 26 between Asheville and
Spartanburg, South Carolina. Construction
now is widening many interstates to eight
lanes and even bypassing original routes to
shorten trips.
One last major form of transportation —
aviation — created one of the fastest ways to
migrate. North Carolina helped start air¬
plane travel when brothers Orville and
Wilbur Wright made the first powered
flight on December 17, 1903, in Kill Devil
Hills. By the 1930s, the Douglas DC-3 had
revolutionized airline travel, and compa¬
nies (including Eastern Airlines) flew into
Raleigh, Winston-Salem, and Charlotte. In
1948 Piedmont Airlines, based in Winston-
Salem, made its first flight from
Wilmington to Cincinnati, Ohio. From that
point, many cities in North Carolina, large
and small, could offer flights to destina¬
tions throughout the state and country.
Piedmont Airlines made the first direct
flight (of eight hours) from North Carolina
to London, England, on June 15, 1987, and
five months later started a direct service to
Nassau, Bahamas. Today, one can take
direct or connecting flights to almost any¬
where in the world.
Migration clearly has become faster and
easier. That early trip from Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, to Salisbury, has changed
from a 24Vi-day trip by wagon (1790s) to
thirteen hours by rail (1940s), to 7\6 hours
by car (Interstate, 1970s), to 416 hours by
plane (today). With all the speed of modern
travel, though, missing is the relaxing feel
of a country road or the clickety-clack of a
railroad — seeing the scenery and history of
North Carolina, not just wondering how
many more miles or hours to the destina¬
tion. Go out and explore these back ways,
and see where our transportation was
born!
The Great Migration
and North Carolina
by Dr. Shepherd W. McKinley
and Cynthia Risser McKinley*
In 1914 Bessye and Howard Bearden, of Charlotte,
had a decision to make. Should they stay in North
Carolina and face increasing discrimination and
violence in the South, or should they move to an
unknown life in the North? Their dilemma was a
familiar one for southern blacks. As the decades of the
late 1800s and early 1900s passed, thousands of
African American families made the same decision to
leave their home state of North Carolina in search of a
better life. Like the Beardens, they moved north.
In the years after the Civil War, formerly enslaved
people throughout
the South temporar¬
ily enjoyed freedom
and new opportuni¬
ties. Politicians
reached out to
blacks, hoping to
get their votes.
Black leaders rose to
power, and lawmak¬
ers respected the
rights of African
American citizens.
But after 1876,
southern politicians
began to turn against
blacks. The Ku Klux
Klan intimidated
African Americans and
helped bring to power
leaders who believed in white supremacy.
For a while, white North Carolinians
ignored this trend. But in the mid- 1890s,
whites chose Furnifold M. Simmons as the state chair
of the Democratic Party. He and his supporters were
determined to put blacks "in their place" through
intimidation and discrimination. When a group of
Wilmington whites rioted in 1898, they killed and
injured dozens of African Americans and chased hun¬
dreds out of the city. Rioters forced black officials,
including the mayor, out of office.
From that point on, North Carolina blacks rapidly
lost power in government and society. Lawmakers
(Above) Students cross a
bus)' intersection in the
Harlem section of N
York City in 1943.
Image front the I
Congress. Prints atni
Photographs Division, from
U.S. Farm Security
Adininistratiou/Offiee of
War Information Collection
(Left) Romare Bearden
became a prominent artist
working in collage and
other media. Image from
the Library of Congress.
Prints and Photographs
Division. Carl Van Veehten
Collection.
Till II. Spring 2006
'Dr. Shepherd W. McKinley is a lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte,
where he teaches North Carolina history and heads the History DqHir talent's educational
outreach efforts Cynthia Risser McKinley is a children's author whose work has been
published in Cobblestone, Appleseeds, iind I lighlights magazines.
