ISO 14001:2015

The town of Rocky Mount today straddles the border of Edgecombe and Nash Counties in the largely rural northeastern North Carolina (see Figure 3.1). Located on the western edge of the coastal plain, this region, and especially Edgecombe County, was home to some the wealthiest antebellum planters in North Carolina,

and was one of only five counties in North Carolina that had more than 10,000 slaves (Weiler 1991). In the late 19th _{and early 20}th _{centuries, agriculture remained} exceedingly important to Edgecombe County: in 1860, it was the largest cotton producer in the state, and cotton remained the driver of the local economy until the 1890s, when a drop in cotton prices brought about a shift towards tobacco. In subsequent years, farmers tended to switch their emphasis back and forth between cotton and tobacco depending on prevailing prices, but by the 1920s tobacco was king (Weiler 1991).

As would be expected in a plantation economy, slaves performed the overwhelming majority of pre-Civil War agricultural labor in Edgecombe County. After Emancipation, the traditional ruling white planter class found themselves outnumbered by freed blacks and their ruling power circumscribed by Federal troops and Reconstruction laws. In the years after the Civil War local politics

dramatically changed, with numerous blacks holding local, state, and federal offices. In North Carolina this period, often termed ‘Radical Reconstruction’, was shortlived. By 1870 the conservative Democratic Party had retaken control of the state

legislature, and by 1875 state and county politics were largely back in the control of a minority of white landowners. A series of reconfigured county borders and new laws enabled the majority white state legislature to regain control over majority black counties like Edgecombe County. First, the Edgecombe – Nash County border was moved several miles eastward in 1871 to divide the town of Rocky Mount in half, meaning that a substantial population of blacks were now gerrymandered into the majority white Nash County where their political influence was dampened. Four

years later, the Democratic controlled state legislature continued to strip majority black counties of their political power by granting the authority to appoint County Commissioners to the state legislature, thereby eliminating their popular election. County Commissioners had wide authority over the operations and taxation of counties, and were also in charge of vote counting. Not surprisingly, numerous elections appeared to have been fixed in subsequent years (Weiler 1991; Southern 2005).

Between 1880 and 1900, voting rights for blacks were gradually eroded via the selective implementation of literacy tests, landholding requirements, and poll taxes at the local level. In conjunction with the overall decline in black population in the Edgecombe County (a decrease of nearly 3,500 people between 1880-1890), the Republican Party grip on local politics began to decline. In the mid-1890s, however, the statewide emergence of populism took hold in Edgecombe County. Across North Carolina, ‘fusion’ party politics saw Populists and Republicans, whose supporters included both poor whites and blacks, work together where possible to form joint electoral tickets. In the lead-up to the heavily contested 1898 elections Democratic newspapers across the state began pushing the issue of race to the forefront of elections, and the Populists sustained numerous narrow losses. In the wake of the 1898 elections, race riots sprung up across the state and were violently put down by a mix of state militias and newly formed ‘White Supremacy’ clubs. These trends were helped along by a resurgence in the official membership of the Ku Klux Klan (Cunningham 2012). Now firmly under Democratic control, the state legislature in 1900 introduced a constitutional amendment that effectively stripped the right to

vote from blacks. The return of whites to their unquestioned position atop the political, economic, and social hierarchy was known as ‘Redemption’. Subsequent efforts to induce industrialization in the South and move away from the agricultural dominance of the past gave birth to what was called the ‘New South’ (Weiler 1991; Beckel 2011).

A New South? 1900-1930

A central question in trying to understand the New South was just how much power former plantation owners had retained after Reconstruction. Prominent Southern historian C. Van Woodward (1955) argued that the New South was largely controlled by a new class separate from old planter families, but this view has more recently been refuted. For example, Clyde Woods’ (2000) analysis of the Mississippi Delta found that remnants of the planter class, through an alliance with northern capital eager to take advantage of the cheap labor and land in the South, have

maintained dominance over African Americans and poor whites until present times. Billings (1979) argues that because so few Confederate leaders actually lost land, nor the valuable social connections to important political institutions, a striking continuity of control in places such as Nash and Edgecombe County exists.

This continuity of control is evident in Rocky Mount. Among the largest slaveholders in the two counties were the Battle’s and the Braswell’s, two families whose members would go on to achieve prominence in both local and state politics, and also exert strong control over the processes of urbanization in Rocky Mount. For example, the nephew of William Battle, who owned 232 slaves before the Civil War and started the Rocky Mount Cotton Mills, was Thomas H. Battle. Thomas H.

Battle would go on to exert a large amount of social, political, and economic control over Rocky Mount through his ownership of Rocky Mount Mills (the largest

manufacturing company in the region), two banks, and real estate company. Battle would also serve ten years as mayor, more than 15 years on the Board of

Commissioners, and 34 years as the chairman of the Board of Rocky Mount Schools. Thomas H. Battle’s contemporary and friend, James Craig Braswell, was the

grandson of a prominent planter. Braswell would found Planters Bank, several manufacturing facilities and tobacco warehouses, serve as president of the North Carolina Bankers Association, and serve 18 years on the Board of Commissioners of Rocky Mount (Weiler 1991; Fleming 2013). Both Battle and Braswell could also draw on a myriad of important family and personal connections across the state, with Battle’s father Kemp serving as President of the University of North Carolina between 1876 and 1891 (Powell 1996)

While Battle, Braswell, or their contemporaries do not appear to have direct links to the Ku Klux Klan, it is worth noting that the period between 1915 and the late 1920s saw an upsurge of Klan membership nationally. North Carolina was very much part of that trend. In 1925, it is estimated that North Carolina had 86

organized Klan groups with a total membership approaching 50,000. The North Carolina Klan also had friends in high places – North Carolina’s Grand Dragon during the 1920s, Henry Grady of Clinton in Sampson County, was a judge on the State Superior Court (Cunningham 2012). Even as the formal Klan disbanded in the late 1920s, reports from Rocky Mount in 1930 show that a local Klan organization gave financial support to a poor white family during the annual Christmas drive put

on by the Salvation Army (Hazirjian 2003). Klan membership, of course, was not a requirement for the practice of white supremacy.

Battle is emblematic of the leaders of the New South, viewing his role as distancing himself from his planter past, but also maintaining the same paternalistic modes of dealing with those he deemed his inferiors. In an analysis of Battle’s letters to his family, Weiler (1991) notes his frequent dismay at the lack of quality people in Rocky Mount, as well as his concern over the overall poor status of the town in the late 1890s. As such,

The dichotomy between Battle’s private expression of disdain and disrespect for his environment and the citizens he led, and his many public offices and ‘good works’ can only be understood when it is remembered that Battle, like other New South industrialists, was also guided by a sense of duty, a paternalism based on a combination of ‘good management’ and a residual sense of moral duty. (Weiler 1991: 181)

Thomas H. Battle and James C. Braswell, as well as their contemporaries on the Rocky Mount Board of Commissioners, would exert immense influence over the patterns of development in Rocky Mount. One of the most important tools available in their control over the town was lighting.