America’s Oldest Black Town Relocating Due To Flooding Risk
PRINCEVILLE, NC – Princeville, North Carolina, founded by formerly enslaved people just after the Civil War, has survived environmental degradation, racism, and governmental inaction. Now, the oldest Black town in the United States seeks to relocate entirely to survive the growing impact of climate change.
Plan to relocate entire town
Princeville, North Carolina, has long faced the threat of flooding, which has worsened in recent years. Most recently, in 2016, Hurricane Matthew submerged the town under more than 10 feet of water. With the town’s survival in question, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has made nearly $11 million available to relocate the entire town to higher ground. The state has already helped secure 53 acres of land for the relocation. The plan is to build a new town center with a government building, fire station, and apartments; private developers will hopefully invest in further developing the new location.
The relocation plan settles a long-running debate for the town, which was founded on flood-prone land and has seen increasingly severe environmental disasters. Princeville’s Mayor Bobbie Jones, supported by some of the town’s residents, has sought to maintain the original location. However, the Army Corps of Engineers has delayed a plan to rebuild the town’s levee, leaving the town at risk. Other residents have accepted individual government buyouts and relocated elsewhere. Others have gone, though there’s hope that some may return once the new location is established.
A history of endurance
Princeville has survived since 1865, when the town was established by formerly enslaved people shortly after the end of the Civil War. The group of around two dozen recently freed Black people were excluded from the white-dominated town of Tarboro but allowed to settle in a nearby flood plain, which they named Freedom Hill, according to The Washington Post. The town was renamed Princeville in honor of Turner Prince, a carpenter who built many of its initial buildings. In the decades since its founding, Princeville has survived racism and environmental dangers, including at least nine major floods over the years.
In 1999, Hurricane Floyd caused flooding that breached Princeville’s levee, and a similar levee-breaching flood occurred when Hurricane Matthew hit in 2016. After Matthew, the town’s population dropped from 2,300 to under 1,600, per the Post. A plan to reinforce the levee was announced in 2016 but paused in 2023 when the Army Corps of Engineers concluded that the upgraded levee would potentially cause flooding for other towns and cities, such as Tarboro.
With limited options, the relocation plan appears to be the last and best chance to maintain the historic Princeville community. Proponents hope that it will strengthen and revive the country’s oldest Black town.
Keep the original town for tourists and to make money by taking tours and having them narrated …make a move there and use the town as a Harriet Tubman type stop over…Do movies there and offer tours …have festival and events…have shows on the lawn or on main street…all that is happening is History is being lost and no one is acting and those who want to act are not given the support they should have… have history parades…if the ones on the bord don’t want to…I will.