The context of the article is the city of Durham\u2019s efforts at the time to add African-Americans to their firefighting force. Eight were hired in October 1958 and staffed a new Station 4 that was opened at Fayetteville and Pekoe streets. It was located in Durham\u2019s historic Hayti community, a neighborhood founded as a independent black community shortly after the Civil War. (The earlier Station 4 was demolished during construction of the Durham Freeway. Read about that<\/a>.)<\/p>\n There are numerous digitized Carolina Times articles from the 1950s, chronicling efforts in Durham to add black career firefighters. (The city was served by the \u201ccolored members\u201d of the volunteer Excelsior Hook and Ladder Company beginning in the mid-1880s.)<\/p>\n The first proposal for career members was floated as early as 1949, noted a Durham Morning Herald story on July 22 of that year. (See source<\/a>.) In North Carolina\u2019s cities, black firefighters were first hired in Winston-Salem in 1951, Durham in 1958, Greensboro in 1961, and Raleigh in 1963. (See archived blog posting<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
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