photos by James Nix
"The Miss Kannapolis float is one of the firsts to pass in the Christmas parade. A short time later the A.L. Brown Marching Band will make its way down Main Street, blowing John Phillip Susa marches while keeping perfect form. It was the tradition.
George Washington Carver High School performed near the end of the cavalcade. Their presence was a crowd favorite and they practiced more than normal to keep expectations high. The low-hanging midmorning sun cast shadows as large as the egos of the drum lines.
Drummers riff on complex syncopated rhythms while the majorettes throw their batons higher than they ever did in practice and catch them without looking up.
Audience members bundled up in their wearing heavy winter coats move with the beats, applauding uproariously and cheering madly.
Moments later, cleaning crews hired by the Cannon Mills Company begin sweeping up the streets and the crowd dissolves. The all-black G.W. Carver band, wearing beaming smiles on top of their white and blue uniforms, puts away their equipment and push down the last remaining anxiety about their performance.
This will be the first and last time a white audience applauds them this year, because in 1960 Kannapolis, blacks sit in the backs of restaurants, enter through a separate door at the mill and go to black only dentists. The races rarely interact unless there’s a downbeat.
But that was 1960. "
-Josh Lanier, Independent Tribune
This was my first big multimedia project for the Independent Tribune. I'm really proud of it- in one week, we interviewed 9 alumni of Carver High, the last all-black school in Kannapolis, about their experiences during segregation, racism today and Barack Obama.
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