"Moore Street: Growing Up in the Era of Jim Crow," Authored by Donald Waddell LaHuffman

By Robin R. Foster

Saturday, we went to the Local Authors' Showcase, sponsored by the Friends of the Cumberland County Public Library. We will be spotlighting some of the authors that were displaying their books.

I was impressed by one of the attendees who reminded me of my great uncle, Dr. Clarence Chick. I have been researching him, and I found he had taught at Fayetteville State University when it was Fayetteville Teacher's College.

I took a wild guess and he happened to have known of him. That is a rare thing for me. I was excited to learn of Mr. Donald Waddell LaHuffman, a retired teacher is the author of "Moore Street: Growing Up in the Era of Jim Crow."

Those of you who follow me and are in Jim Crow Genealogy! Just Ask!, you know of the work I do to document Jim Crow Era descendants in genealogy. Well, I am very elated to introduce Mr. LaHuffman to you.

His book is on Amazon, and I will be getting and reading it as well. In the synopsis on Amazon, it says the book "is a compelling firsthand account of the author's boyhood years growing up in Fayetteville, North Carolina during the era of racial segregation, circa 1942-1960."

My great uncle, Clarence, would have had similar experiences. I am eager to learn more about the impact of Jim Crow on Fayetteville, North Carolinians. I know the struggles that his cousin, my grandmother, faced in South Carolina.

It will be interesting to compare Mr. LaHuffman's experiences with my grandparents' experience in Columbia, South Carolina. Uncle Clarence had often requested that my mother come to school here at Fayetteville.

This is the first in a series of spotlights.