W.W. Ward

founding shareholder Alpha Mill

In the record (28)

1865
Clinton Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, founded in Charlotte's Third Ward in the immediate aftermath of emancipation, is regarded as the oldest Black church built in Charlotte.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Mecklenburg Presbytery First United Presbyterian Church First Baptist Church West Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church George W. Clinton
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1865
Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church was founded in 1865 by Northern AME Zion missionaries who moved into North Carolina alongside Union troops, becoming one of Charlotte's oldest independent Black congregations tied to the Brooklyn/Second Ward Black church network.
Mecklenburg Presbytery First United Presbyterian Church First Baptist Church West Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church George W. Clinton
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1866
In 1866, Black members left the balcony of Charlotte's First Presbyterian Church and, with the assistance of white missionaries, organized the area's first Black Presbyterian congregation, which grew into First United Presbyterian Church in what was then First Ward.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
First Presbyterian Church Mecklenburg Presbytery First United Presbyterian Church First Baptist Church West First Presbyterian Church
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1888 · 1888-01-01
The Alpha Mill was first organized in January 1888 using a novel public stock-subscription structure that let ordinary Charlotte residents buy shares in the mill on a weekly installment plan, with E.K.P. Osborne and W.W. Ward among the founding shareholders.
Alpha Mill Mecklenburg Cotton Mill Ada Mill Orient Mill Victor Cotton Mill E.K.P. Osborne
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1891
The Charlotte Museum of History states Good Samaritan Hospital was built in Charlotte's Third Ward with funds raised by St. Peter's Episcopal Church and its parishioners, describing it as the first private hospital in North Carolina built exclusively for the treatment of Charlotte's Black citizens.
Good Samaritan Hospital site Mecklenburg Presbytery First United Presbyterian Church First Baptist Church West Presbyterian Hospital Good Samaritan Hospital Mercy Hospital Mint Museum of Art Levine Museum of the New South Harvey B. Gantt Center NASCAR Hall of Fame St. Peter's Episcopal Church Peter
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1891
The Greenville neighborhood, another majority-Black Charlotte community west of uptown (in Fourth Ward), developed in the 1890s as one of several Black villages ringing the city, alongside communities like Cherry (developed 1891 to promote Black homeownership).
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1891 · 1891-09-23
Good Samaritan Hospital opened for business on September 23, 1891, at the corner of Mint and Graham Streets in Charlotte's Third Ward, with a 20-bed capacity — one of the first hospitals built specifically for African American patients in the United States and the first privately funded Black hospital in North Carolina.
Good Samaritan Hospital site Queen City Drug Store Presbyterian Hospital Good Samaritan Hospital Mercy Hospital Joseph Graham
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1923
Before Second Ward High School opened, Black students in Charlotte seeking a high-school education had to leave the city or attend the high-school-level program at Johnson C. Smith University.
Johnson C. Smith University Harding High School Second Ward High School Central High School Biddle Memorial Institute Jane Berry Smith Johnson C. Smith
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1923
Second Ward High School opened at the corner of Alexander and First streets in Charlotte's Brooklyn neighborhood, becoming the city's first public high school for African American students; the same year the city opened Central High School for white students on Elizabeth Avenue.
Harding High School Second Ward High School Central High School George Alexander Abraham Alexander Samuel C. Alexander
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1923
The Swank Social Club later operated on the former site of Second Ward High School after the school's demolition — one of the few post-renewal Black-owned social institutions to occupy former Brooklyn land, per Wikipedia; included here as a cross-check pointer pending a tier 1-2 corroborating source.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Harding High School Second Ward High School Central High School
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1949
The federal Housing Act of 1949 established the slum-clearance and public-housing framework — federal funding for demolishing designated 'blighted' urban areas and building public housing — that undergirded the urban renewal programs later applied to Brooklyn, Greenville, and First Ward.
Redevelopment Commission
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1957
The Redevelopment Commission of the City of Charlotte was created in 1957, tasked with planning and organizing urban renewal projects and rehabilitating neighborhoods the city deemed blighted; over its lifespan it worked in Belmont, Brooklyn, Cherry, Dilworth, Downtown, First Ward, Greenville, North Charlotte, Third Ward, and Wilmore.
Redevelopment Commission
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1958
Brooklyn was a 238-acre neighborhood within Charlotte's Second Ward that was home to schools, churches, civic organizations, Black-owned businesses, and, by most accounts, over a thousand families before urban renewal began.
Redevelopment Commission
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1963
First Ward residents fought to have their houses relocated rather than demolished when urban renewal razed the neighborhood's public housing, but many were left with nowhere to go as demolition proceeded — a Charlotte Observer retrospective photo essay documents the period.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Redevelopment Commission Charlotte Observer
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1967
As part of urban renewal in Charlotte's First Ward, the city cleared the neighborhood's Black residential core and in 1967 built Earle Village Homes, a 409-unit public housing project, on part of the cleared land.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Redevelopment Commission
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1967
Charlotte voters approved a $35 million school bond that earmarked roughly $2 million for renovations to Second Ward High School; the renovation was never completed before the school board instead voted to close and later demolish the building.
Harding High School Second Ward High School Central High School
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1969
Second Ward High School was closed as part of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' desegregation-era plan, one of five historically Black center-city schools (along with Fairview, Alexander Street, Bethune, and Isabella Wyche) that the school board voted to close that summer rather than fully integrate and maintain.
Harding High School Second Ward High School Central High School George Alexander Abraham Alexander Samuel C. Alexander
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1970
A 1970 photograph documents the demolition of the Second Ward High School building, among the last major Brooklyn institutions to fall to urban renewal.
Harding High School Second Ward High School Central High School Redevelopment Commission
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1970
Marshall Park is a 5.5-acre urban park at 800 East Third Street built on part of the former Second Ward (Brooklyn) neighborhood after urban renewal demolition cleared the site.
Marshall Park Redevelopment Commission Marshall Park
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1970
Second Ward High School's main building was demolished after the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board deemed the structure a hazard; only the school's gymnasium survived and now stands as a designated historic landmark on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Harding High School Second Ward High School Central High School Douglas Martin
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1973
Much of the area north of Fourth Ward, including large portions of Greenville, was leveled by the early 1970s and replaced with suburban ranch-style houses rather than housing for the displaced Black community.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1976
The destruction of Brooklyn, Greenville, and the Black core of First Ward under urban renewal is understood by historians and the city's own 2020 mayoral apology as a case of a thriving Black community's homes, businesses, churches, and generational wealth being deliberately destroyed by government action — a moral assessment distinct from, and not undermined by, the genuine disagreement among sources over exact structure and family counts.
Redevelopment Commission Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center Dorothy Counts
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1977
Charlotte's federal urban renewal program ran from the late 1940s through roughly the mid-to-late 1970s, and its patterns — clearing 'declining' Black neighborhoods for institutional, highway, or redevelopment use — recurred across Brooklyn, Greenville, and First Ward alike.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Redevelopment Commission
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1980
The Second Ward High School National Alumni Foundation was established by former students Cecelia Jackson Wilson, Louis C. Coleman, and Dr. Mildred Baxter-Davis to preserve the school's memory and support its graduates.
Harding High School Second Ward High School Central High School G.E. Wilson Cecelia Jackson Wilson Louis C. Coleman Mildred Baxter-Davis
Source · checked 2026-08-13
1997
Redevelopment of First Ward's public housing began in earnest in 1997 with the First Ward Place partnership, transforming the site once home to Earle Village public housing into a mixed-income community.
Source · checked 2026-08-13
2009
The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture opened in 2009 within the former Second Ward/Brooklyn area of uptown Charlotte.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture Harvey B. Gantt Center Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture
Source · checked 2026-08-13
2022 · 2022-06-30
Effective June 30, 2022, CATS renamed the LYNX Blue Line's Stonewall Station to Brooklyn Village Station and renamed Stonewall Street to Brooklyn Village Avenue, honoring the legacy of the demolished Black Second Ward neighborhood.
Source · checked 2026-08-13
2023 · 2023-07-15
Alumni, their descendants, and hundreds of community members gathered on July 15, 2023 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Second Ward High School's founding.
Harding High School Second Ward High School Central High School
Source · checked 2026-08-13

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W.W. Ward

In the record (28)

Clinton Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, founded in Charlotte's Third Ward in the immediate aftermath of emancipation, is regarded as the oldest Black church built in Charlotte.

Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church was founded in 1865 by Northern AME Zion missionaries who moved into North Carolina alongside Union troops, becoming one of Charlotte's oldest independent Black congregations tied to the Brooklyn/Second Ward Black church network.

In 1866, Black members left the balcony of Charlotte's First Presbyterian Church and, with the assistance of white missionaries, organized the area's first Black Presbyterian congregation, which grew into First United Presbyterian Church in what was then First Ward.

The Alpha Mill was first organized in January 1888 using a novel public stock-subscription structure that let ordinary Charlotte residents buy shares in the mill on a weekly installment plan, with E.K.P. Osborne and W.W. Ward among the founding shareholders.

The Charlotte Museum of History states Good Samaritan Hospital was built in Charlotte's Third Ward with funds raised by St. Peter's Episcopal Church and its parishioners, describing it as the first private hospital in North Carolina built exclusively for the treatment of Charlotte's Black citizens.

The Greenville neighborhood, another majority-Black Charlotte community west of uptown (in Fourth Ward), developed in the 1890s as one of several Black villages ringing the city, alongside communities like Cherry (developed 1891 to promote Black homeownership).

Before Second Ward High School opened, Black students in Charlotte seeking a high-school education had to leave the city or attend the high-school-level program at Johnson C. Smith University.

Second Ward High School opened at the corner of Alexander and First streets in Charlotte's Brooklyn neighborhood, becoming the city's first public high school for African American students; the same year the city opened Central High School for white students on Elizabeth Avenue.

The federal Housing Act of 1949 established the slum-clearance and public-housing framework — federal funding for demolishing designated 'blighted' urban areas and building public housing — that undergirded the urban renewal programs later applied to Brooklyn, Greenville, and First Ward.

Brooklyn was a 238-acre neighborhood within Charlotte's Second Ward that was home to schools, churches, civic organizations, Black-owned businesses, and, by most accounts, over a thousand families before urban renewal began.

First Ward residents fought to have their houses relocated rather than demolished when urban renewal razed the neighborhood's public housing, but many were left with nowhere to go as demolition proceeded — a Charlotte Observer retrospective photo essay documents the period.

As part of urban renewal in Charlotte's First Ward, the city cleared the neighborhood's Black residential core and in 1967 built Earle Village Homes, a 409-unit public housing project, on part of the cleared land.

Charlotte voters approved a $35 million school bond that earmarked roughly $2 million for renovations to Second Ward High School; the renovation was never completed before the school board instead voted to close and later demolish the building.

A 1970 photograph documents the demolition of the Second Ward High School building, among the last major Brooklyn institutions to fall to urban renewal.

Marshall Park is a 5.5-acre urban park at 800 East Third Street built on part of the former Second Ward (Brooklyn) neighborhood after urban renewal demolition cleared the site.

Second Ward High School's main building was demolished after the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board deemed the structure a hazard; only the school's gymnasium survived and now stands as a designated historic landmark on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Much of the area north of Fourth Ward, including large portions of Greenville, was leveled by the early 1970s and replaced with suburban ranch-style houses rather than housing for the displaced Black community.

Charlotte's federal urban renewal program ran from the late 1940s through roughly the mid-to-late 1970s, and its patterns — clearing 'declining' Black neighborhoods for institutional, highway, or redevelopment use — recurred across Brooklyn, Greenville, and First Ward alike.

The Second Ward High School National Alumni Foundation was established by former students Cecelia Jackson Wilson, Louis C. Coleman, and Dr. Mildred Baxter-Davis to preserve the school's memory and support its graduates.

Redevelopment of First Ward's public housing began in earnest in 1997 with the First Ward Place partnership, transforming the site once home to Earle Village public housing into a mixed-income community.

The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture opened in 2009 within the former Second Ward/Brooklyn area of uptown Charlotte.

Effective June 30, 2022, CATS renamed the LYNX Blue Line's Stonewall Station to Brooklyn Village Station and renamed Stonewall Street to Brooklyn Village Avenue, honoring the legacy of the demolished Black Second Ward neighborhood.

Alumni, their descendants, and hundreds of community members gathered on July 15, 2023 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Second Ward High School's founding.