Marvin Jones’ Winton Triangle research a personal journey

The Pleasant Plains Baptist Church, founded in1851, is one of the oldest Black and multiracial congregations in North Carolina. The brick church, built in1951, replaced the original wooden church. Photo: Contributed
The Pleasant Plains Baptist Church founded in 1851 is one of the oldest multiracial congregations in North Carolina. The brick church, built in 1951, replaced the original wooden church. Photo: Contributed

NORTHEASTERN NORTH CAROLINA — In 1845, North Carolina passed a law prohibiting free people of color from selling liquor. Fourteen years later, the law was expanded banning the sale of liquor to “… any free person of color, for cash, or in exchange for articles delivered, or upon any consideration whatever, or as a gift …”

Almost immediately, 55 white men from Hertford County requested an exemption. There does not seem to be a record of why the exemption was requested, but in his University of North Carolina Chapel Hill 2012 doctoral dissertation, Warren Milner points out that “by 1860, approximately 1,000 free people of color resided in Hertford County, giving the county one of the largest free non-white

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