CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – Every city has a story, a history. Communities that settled long before modern developments. Sometimes that history is held onto and preserved, and in others, it’s lost, forgotten or destroyed.
That’s the case when it comes to Brooklyn — but not in New York.
“Brooklyn was the original, if you were going to say a Black neighborhood in Charlotte. It was the first,” historian Pam Grundy told WBTV.
WBTV dives into the history of Brooklyn, Charlotte’s first Black neighborhood, in its 2026 Black History Month special.(WBTV)
Charlotte’s Brooklyn neighborhood took up nearly 50 blocks of the center city, nestled between 4th, Brevard, Morehead and McDowell streets. It was a city within a city under segregation with Black businesses, restaurants, theaters and more.
“People will say, you come to Brooklyn, you would leave the rest of Charlotte and go there, and it was just a whole different atmosphere,” Grundy said.
Because of segregation, African Americans were only allowed to live in certain places, creating an economic mix of neighbors. Some people were well-off with very nice homes, and others were working class. Some who rented poorly maintained shotgun houses from white landlords, many absentee.
Arthur Griffin lived just outside the edge of Brooklyn, but says he spent most of his formative years there. It’s where his dentist and doctor were, and most of his social life — the center of his world.
“There were all types of wonderful things happening, but the biggest thing I would say is a sense of safety during a period we were segregated by law,” Griffin said. ”But we were united by love here in Brooklyn.”
WBTV dives into the history of Brooklyn, Charlotte’s first Black neighborhood, in its 2026 Black History Month special. Pictured: Arthur Griffin.(WBTV)
Griffin graduated from Second Ward high school in 1966. It was the first public high school for Black students in the county, opening in Brooklyn in 1923.
Back then, there were no buses for African American students to get to school. So, they walked, no matter the weather conditions.
“Going to Second Ward and experiencing life in Brooklyn really gave you an opportunity to really test your mettle, so to speak, your determination, your persistence, your grit,” Griffin said.
WBTV dives into the history of Brooklyn, Charlotte’s first Black neighborhood, in its 2026 Black History Month special.(WBTV)
The school closed in 1969, after it had been approved for renovations years prior. Those renovations never happened.
“The school board had promised that there would be a new school,” Grundy said. “That was the big promise and then almost overnight, the school board voted to close it.”
The school was mostly demolished in 1970, as part of an urban renewal project. The school’s only remaining structure is its gymnasium. It’s one of only four buildings still standing from the Brooklyn neighborhood.
WBTV dives into the history of Brooklyn, Charlotte’s first Black neighborhood, in its 2026 Black History Month special.(WBTV)
In 1961, Charlotte Mayor Stan Brookshire used a sledgehammer to make the first demolishing blow to a Brooklyn home under that federally funded urban renewal project — which was approved the year before.
The project allowed the city to clear out the entire Brooklyn neighborhood: homes, churches, businesses, more than one thousand structures. Those efforts reportedly displaced 9,000 people.
Leaders said the community was blighted. Some homes were, but not all of them.
“During that period of disruption, I’ll be honest with you, there was fear. There was really sadness, because we just did not know what to expect,” Griffin recalled. “They simply wiped us off the face of the map in terms of our institutions, our sense of safety, and what we had come to know as home.
“For us, it was urban removal.”
The urban renewal project lasted for about a decade.
“This idea that somehow, by clearing out this Black community, you were going to open up this great economic opportunity was completely misplaced. It didn’t happen,” Grundy said. “Parts of it are still sitting today that are parking lots.”
WBTV dives into the history of Brooklyn, Charlotte’s first Black neighborhood, in its 2026 Black History Month special.(WBTV)
But the biggest blow was to the social ties that were severed as people were forced to relocate inside and outside of the Charlotte perimeter.
The story of Charlotte’s Brooklyn neighborhood is not widely known, but the people who lived there carry its history with pride.
“I would want people to know that Black excellence existed. That Black excellence, in terms of all of the institutions, was in this one little community called Brooklyn, a city within a city,” Griffin said.
You can learn more about the some of the buildings still standing in what was the Brooklyn neighborhood on the Brooklyn Collective’s website here.
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