Afternoon sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows of Hayti Heritage Center last Saturday as about 200 community members gathered to watch a documentary celebrating Grant Street and the Grant Street Ladies: Brenda Bradsher, Joanne Brown, Pam Blake, Vivian Gunn and Dianne Merritt.

Created by the nonprofit BLK South and filmmaker Justin Reid, the documentary tells the story of the last surviving block of Durham’s historic Hayti neighborhood. In the late 1960s, urban renewal and the construction of the Durham Freeway displaced 4,000 Hayti families and destroyed 500 businesses but the 700 block of Grant Street remained.

The street’s legacy, however, goes beyond survival. It lives through the efforts of the Grant Street ladies whose families have lived on the street for more than a century.

“Because mothers, grandmothers and great-grandparents chose to stay, the community endures today, carried forward by the Grant Street Ladies … who serve as neighbors, elders and caretakers of over a century of history.”

The documentary opens with the ladies recalling memories of their childhood that made the Hayti community special. Bradsher, who has lived in Durham for 80 years, said the neighborhood was built on love and respect.

She remembers her family’s grapevine and her neighbors’ pear and apple trees, where she picked fruit when it ripened. Gunn remembers her hardworking, well-dressed grandfather and her grandmother’s love for cooking.

The women also spoke about a creek where the neighborhood children played.

“Sometimes we called it the branch, sometimes we called it the creek,” Gunn said. “It was a place for learning, and you learned well. You learned about life, about animals, about science, trees … it was a place of happiness for the kids in the community.”

As a child, Bradsher and her friends would walk up the street to a neighbor’s home and look out from his balcony.

“We could see all the way downtown,” she said. “We would stand up there — when they would have games, you could hear it and see the ballpark … but then they tore that house down.”

When urban renewal came through, the 500 and 600 blocks of Hayti were demolished.

“All our friends were gone,” Bradsher said. “We were just left down here by ourselves.”

With the help of Bishop Clarence Laney Jr., the women began meeting at Monument of Faith Church to discuss restoring the community.

In 2017, their efforts paid off when they were given three vacant lots by then–Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield. Today, two affordable housing duplexes stand on the property.

“We had to learn how to keep our community going,” Bradsher said. “We would talk about what we were going to do to make sure our parents’ and grandparents’ homes would stay here. Because this was our heritage.”

Aalayah Sanders, director of communications for the Durham Housing Authority, attended the screening and said it was inspiring.

“To actually see the documentary, I don’t just see residents or community members — I can see my grandma and my mom and those who have lived much longer than myself,” Sanders said. “What I’m really taking away is keeping the historical significance of this community and making sure the voices that matter stay at the table.”

The ladies’ efforts are also one reason a decades-long vacancy at Fayette Place is set to end later this year. Durham Congregations, Associations and Neighborhoods and Hayti Reborn joined with the ladies to advocate for the 20-acre lot to become the site of a new affordable housing project, the Villages of Hayti. The development will include 252 units.

Donna Frederick, who attended the event, also said the documentary was powerful. She has lived in another Durham neighborhood, Bragtown, for decades and said the ladies’ tenacity is something she will take away.

For many in attendance, the documentary underscored the importance of preserving not only the buildings, but also the stories and relationships that define a community. In that way, Grant Street stands as both a reminder of what was lost and a model for what can still be protected.

“We’re just ordinary people,” Bradsher said in the documentary. “Just ordinary people doing ordinary things, trying to keep our family legacy. All we want to do on Grant Street is keep our family legacy going.”

 

Edited by: Hannah Smith