Semi-Weekly Robesonian - August 21, 1913 Issue

Contact: Myrtle Bridges   January 3, 2015

A Celebration Unique in the South-Former Masters and Mistresses Honor Former Servants.

Today a memorable chapter has been added to the history of Rockingham and Richmond county. A celebration unique in North Carolina, 
if not in the entire South, has been instituted. Today's event was a reunion of the former slaves of the county and a sumptuous 
dinner was served in their honor by the masters and mistresses whom they in other days loved and served.

There have been reunions of men who wore gray and of the men who wore the blue, but hitherto no public recognation has been given to the 
loyalty and devotion of the slaves, the "colored veterans" whose number is rapidly diminishing.

Through the generosity of the white people of Rockingham the slaves were given this opportunity to meet their former comrades, and it was 
a thrilling sight to see the 400 or more, most of them with hair grown white and many walking with feeble steps, in a parade through the 
town's principal streets. It was equally pleasing to see the interest with which each entered into the spirit of the occasion.

At 11 o'clock in the morning the old negroes and as many of younger generation as could find room, and a goodly number of the town's 
representative white people assembled in the court room.

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