Peddler’s Cart | Stores | Scrap Yard | Tobacco
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 />  />  />  />  />  />  />  /> A mainstay of downtown Durham for forty years, the Evans store catered to working people of all races. Evans also served six terms as Durham’s mayor (1951-1963). Giving Back Before desegregation became law, Evans United was the only store on Durham’s Main Street with an integrated lunch counter. When the county judge told Evans that North Carolina prohibited blacks and whites from sitting together in public, Evans removed all the stools and hired carpenters to raise the countertop to elbow-leaning height, creating an integrated, stand-up lunch counter.  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  /> These German-born brothers operated a wholesale herb-supply business that featured thousands of specimens. Many of these were picked by mountain residents whom the Wallaces hired. Industries from China to Europe bought from the Wallaces and used the herbs to prepare drugs and tonics. The Wallaces’ specimens won medals at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and at the Paris Exposition of 1878. Giving Back According to a New York newspaper, the Wallace herbarium gave work to “women, children, and maimed or broken down men.” The rural poor walked barefoot for miles to trade roots, herbs, and barks for salt and kerosene. In these economically depressed times, the Wallace trade helped save country storekeepers from bankruptcy. David Wallace was described as the Jewish community’s “Hebrew of Hebrews,” a lay prayer leader who was remembered as “a friend at all times to every call of the poor and needy.” His son William helped found Statesville’s public schools, and his grandson John, a World War I veteran, represented Iredell County in the State Senate in 1940.  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  />  /> Having worked for twelve years as traveling salesmen for their father’s Baltimore wholesale business, Moses and Ceasar Cone in 1894 scraped together money to open a textile-making factory in Greensboro. The business grew into an empire of eighteen mills and two finishing plants in three states, employing over 16,000 workers. Many of these workers lived in mill villages, with houses, schools, and community centers owned by the company. Giving Back The Cones were outsized in their philanthropies as well as in their industries. Cone sisters Etta and Claribel, intimates of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso in Paris. donated art to the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Weatherspoon Art Gallery in Greensboro. Ceasar supported the American Jewish Committee and the YMCA. The family donated the Hayes-Taylor YMCA to serve Greensboro’s African American community. Moses lived on 3.500 acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Blowing Rock, where his wife. Bertha, opened a school for Appalachian youth. The Cones stocked local lakes with fish and forests with deer. They also helped transform a local academy into the Appalachian Training School, the forerunner of Appalachian State University. After Moses’s death in 1908, Bertha endowed Greensboro’s Moses Cone Memorial Hospital.
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