Fayetteville, formed from the merger of two earlier settlements in 1783, is filled with historical markers denoting the people, places and events that helped shape our city.
A number of those markers pay tribute to Black Fayettevillians who made lasting impacts on Fayetteville and, in some cases, the nation.
Among those honored are famed author Charles Chesnutt; Hiram Revels, the first Black person elected to the United States Congress; Lewis Leary, a free Black man who died alongside John Brown during the raid on Harper’s Ferry; Henry Evans, who brought the Methodist Church to Fayetteville; and Islamic scholar Omar Ibn Said, who was kidnapped in Africa and brought to America in the final months of the transatlantic slave trade…