Greensboro's African American Community Newspaper since 1967
Celebrating family, neighborhood, and enduring community heritage, the residents of Warnersville celebrated the community’s 160th anniversary. Warnersville is the first planned African American community in Greensboro.
From noon into the evening, hundreds of people from the area, adjacent Hampton Homes neighbors, and members of the national Warnersville diaspora congregated at the Warnersville Recreation Center, where nonstop music, dancing, games, and delectable food abounded.
On Doak Street, across from the reunion activities, Centenarian Mary Shoffner celebrated her milestone birthday with family and friends from the neighborhood and nationwide.
Many people attending the Southside reunion wore commemorative t-shirts emblazoned with, “Our Roots Run Deep, Our Loyalty Runs Deeper,” paying homage to the local and greater Warnersville community.
Warnersville was created after the Civil War ended. Pennsylvania Quaker Yardley Warner purchased 35.5 acres of land south of Greensboro and divided it into plots to be sold to newly freed African Americans.
Warnersville historians Dr. Johnny and Brenda Hodge wrote in documents located at the Greensboro History Museum, “It was the first Black community in the county where people could own their own homes, build their own churches, own land, run their own businesses, and educate their own children.”
Urban Renewal of the 1960s changed the landscape of the Warnersville community. The community continues to this day, and its residents, past and present, have influenced social change throughout the county and beyond.
