Topics Related to Things to Do

The CSS Neuse Civil War Interpretive Center is expanding.

The Center will unveil its final phase of permanent exhibits to the public March 12. Entitled “The Civil War in Eastern North Carolina,” these exhibits will examine a variety of aspects of the Civil War including causes, military engagements and personalities, and the involvement of African Americans and women.
The CSS Neuse Civil War Interpretive Center is growing again.
Fort Dobbs State Historic Site will offer a glimpse of the harrowing days of the Anglo-Cherokee War Feb. 26.  The Cherokee and British had been allies when the French and Indian War started, but tensions quickly spiraled into hostilities. The fort was engaged by up to 70 Cherokee warriors in a confusing night-time skirmish on Feb. 27, 1760.
Somerset Place State Historic Site will commemorate Black History Month with a virtual program, “The Anthropology of Adornment and Identity at Somerset Place.” 
Reconstruction remains one of the most misunderstood periods in our nation’s history. Broadly, it was about the meaning of citizenship as African American enslaved people seized their freedom and the restoration of the former Confederate states to the Union. At the local or regional level within the American South, however, these broad issues played out very differently.   
The State Archives of North Carolina will host a virtual presentation, “Discovering and Telling Lost and Unknown Stories: A Family Odyssey,” Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2-3 p.m.  Deputy Secretary for Archives and History, Dr. Darin Waters, will discuss his research into the Rice and Waters families of western N.C., the importance of the State Archives and other public collections, and his donations of family materials. Join this free webinar to celebrate Black History Month and consider the significance of family and regional history for North Carolina.
The Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum is open for Black History Month tours during February. Join the museum staff for tours daily at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., departing from the Visitor’s Center. Tours will include the grounds of the former Palmer Memorial Institute and Canary Cottage, the former home of Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown. Come learn about Dr. Brown’s social justice activism, civic work, and the impact that she had on her students. Tours are $2 per adult and $1 per child.
Two days after surviving the battle of Bentonville, Lt. Col. William E. Strong reflected on “those brave and gallant companions in arms who will come back to us no more. Peace to the gallant dead, sleeping, some of them in far away and unmarked graves.” Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site will reflect on the battle’s casualties during the 157th-anniversary commemoration, “Peace to the Gallant Dead.” This illumination event will take place on the evening of March 19, 2022.
Students at the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) will have the opportunity to learn and earn this summer through a 10-week paid summer internship within the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
A lot can happen in half a century. For that matter, a lot can happen in a year. At the end of calendar year 2021, Fort Fisher State Historic Site achieved its goal of more than one million visitors annually, a first for Fort Fisher or any historic site within the NC Division of State Historic Sites. When the turnstiles stopped at year’s end, total onsite visitation for calendar year 2021 reached 1,052,270.