Strieby Congregational Church, School, & Cemetery Cultural Heritage Site

09/09/2026

Thank you History Before Us!

Hidden in the Uwharrie Mountains of Randolph County, North Carolina...

09/09/2026

Tonight! 6pm EDT!

Tonight 6pm 🕕 eastern 🚨- YouTube

Hidden in the Uwharrie Mountains of Randolph County, North Carolina, the Strieby Church, School, & Cemetery Cultural Heritage Site preserves the story of a historic African American community with roots extending back to free people of color before the Civil War.

In Part One, I talk with descendants learn more about the families who built and sustained this community. We also explore the historic church and visit the oldest surviving building connected to Strieby.

This is a story of family, faith, education, land, and the importance of descendants remaining connected to the places their ancestors called home.

Make sure you subscribe ✅ and turn on notifications 🔔 for Part Two, when we enter the cemetery 🪦 and explore the resting places of some of Strieby’s earliest residents.

If you value this type of work, please share the episode and consider becoming a channel member to help History Before Us continue documenting communities and preserving their stories.

09/09/2026

Although Strieby School was not established for another 10 years in 1879, and it was a privately-run, Congregational church-affiliated school, it followed in and extended the tradition and value of education in the Reconstruction-era. Indeed, there was a Freedmen’s school in the area, managed by Aaron Orlando “AO” Hill Jr., a Quaker. It was referenced in the Freedmen’s Education records as Uharie Freedmen’sSchool. When it comes to our “back country” community, education is in our bones.


https://margoleewilliamsbooks.com/tag/uharie-district-freedmens-school/

In November 1865, just months after emancipation, North Carolina already had 61 schools open specifically for formerly enslaved children and adults, taught by 97 teachers working with almost nothing. 📚

The Freedmen's Bureau's education effort in North Carolina grew astonishingly fast. By February 1866 those numbers had nearly doubled, to 115 schools and 151 teachers serving more than 11,000 students. By 1868 the state counted 336 schools, 339 teachers, and over 16,000 pupils, all coordinated by superintendent F.A. Fiske, who managed funding from northern benevolent societies and organized teachers willing to come south. More than 160 schools operated across the state between 1865 and 1870, before North Carolina's new school law reshaped public education entirely.

These were often one-room buildings with students of every age crowded onto the same benches, adults and children learning to read side by side for the first time in their lives, sometimes by lamplight after a full day of work.

It is worth sitting with how fast people organized their own education the moment they were legally allowed to.

09/08/2026

Thanks for being a top engager and making it on to our weekly engagement list! 🎉

Yvonne Shanks, Patricia Cross Balfour, David Patrick McKenzie

09/08/2026

Thanks for being top engagers and making it on to my weekly engagement list! 🎉

Yvonne Shanks, Patricia Cross Balfour, David Patrick McKenzie
🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈🎈

09/06/2026

Congratulations to Walden descendant Pamela Walden on launching her new children’s book site. She has some excellent stories there. Check it out. Never too early to think about Christmas gifts (yeah, I said it).

https://pcsnead16.wixsite.com/hidden-strawberries?fbclid=IwZnRzaAUKevFwZG9mBWZkaWQWUN5DbDY3wgGz2-pyilzW4tV5o_ZZr2V4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR647VDZjKxZ6eRzfpALoBElNSagu1qSHqEPBJwN6PNwALRBjlq-Cq31yBQ7Bg_aem_pyCrSfntN72anxDBrJbOow

Join Puff Bear and friends on imaginative adventures filled with friendship, caring, courage, and hope. Each story invites young readers to dream, learn, and believe in themselves.

09/03/2026

Arthur Hill was a wealth of information and the ultimate source for many things that we are blessed to know about our history.

09/02/2026

We got over 200 reactions on my posts last week! Thanks everyone for your support! 🎉