'high point museum'

Did you ever wonder where we got all those great photographs of High Point in the 1950s? Or how we know the names of people pictured or the dates of the events shown? Learn more about our collection of photographic negatives from The High Point Enterprise and how much work it takes to bring you the photograph and the information in our online catalog. 

The North Carolina African American Heritage Commission invited the High Point Museum to add a historic marker to their North Carolina Civil Rights Trail in 2022, one of a number of sites in the state where challenges to racial segregation took place. The marker in High Point commemorates the actions leading to the desegregation of Blair Park Golf Course in 1956. Often these local protests are left out of the larger narrative of the civil rights story in our state, and the Trail highlights many inspiring “everyday” people who made a difference. The golf game played by three doctors at Blair Park in December 1954 was the first step of many to move High Point toward racial integration and is an important event in High Point’s history. 

The High Point Historical Society’s 2022 Adopt-An-Artifact program conserved a 1953 soap box derby car owned by Henry Clyde Williams, Jr., donated to our collection in 2021. The car is currently on exhibit at the Museum in a new exhibit, “The Need For Speed.” Included in the exhibit are numerous photographs from the early years of the Soap Box Derby in High Point, a community event that started in 1951 and continued through 1972.