Wicked Greensboro

by Alice Sink

Overview

In a town where ladies of the evening walked the streets (but were legally bound to hide their ankles) and trouble rolled through town on the famous railways, this Piedmont city has seen its fair share of iniquity. From Frank Lucas, the drug lord whose childhood in Greensboro served as the catalyst for a life of crime, to the teacher who ruled his students with a switch and a pocketknife, the tales in Wicked Greensboro capture the shady side of the Gate City's past. Travel with local author Alice Sink down the streets of old-time Greensboro to view a city riddled with prostitution, bootlegging and all manner of unsavory and mischievous depravity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609492755
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	04/29/2011
Series:	Wicked
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	716,164
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Alice E. Sink is the published author of books and numerous short stories, articles and essays in anthologies and in trade and literary magazines. She earned her MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. For thirty years, she taught writing courses at High Point University in High Point, North Carolina, where she received the Meredith Clark Slane Distinguished Teaching/Service Award in 2002. The North Carolina Arts Council and the partnering arts councils of the Central Piedmont Regional Artists Hub Program awarded Sink a 2007 grant to promote her writing.

Table of Contents

Preface 11

Acknowledgements and Contributors 13

Part I Public Wrath

Daniel Worth: Imprisoned for Incendiary Doctrines 15

Adam Crooks: Dragged from the Pulpit and Jailed 18

Quakers: Bear Arms or Pay the Tax! 21

Emigration: Antebellum Slur 22

Equality Reigns over Wickedness: The Greensboro Four Sit-ins 23

The Greensboro Massacre 34

Unsolved Murder 38

Part II Public Health and Welfare

Shortage of Medical Doctors 41

Quackery 42

Smallpox Ordinance 45

Housekeeping Duties: Necessary Yet Demoralizing 45

Remedy for That Wicked Common Cold 47

Bog and Mire 47

Rampant Poliomyelitis Sweeps Greensboro 48

In Times of War 49

Segregation-Era Literacy Test 50

Part III Grimes and Punishments

Dungeons and Isolation 53

Incarnation for the Wicked 54

School Apparatus: Multipurposed for Work and Punishment 55

Hangings: Public Celebrations 55

Slaves: Arrests and Punishment for Runaways 56

Dates and Events: Association with Local Murder Trial 57

Prostitution 57

Punishments for Wickedness 59

Archibald Debow Murphey's Imprisonment 60

Handcuffed and Chained 62

Swigging, Gambling and Swearing 63

(William Sydney Porter) O Henry 65

Drug Lord Frank Lucas 66

Different Rules 67

Protester, Violator of Zoning Laws and Bomb Threat 68

Part IV The Cutting Edge

Shooting Matches and Cock Fighting 71

Sippin' and Dippin' 73

Surrogate Babysitter 77

Potential Bank Raid Thwarted 77

"The Forgotten Man": For Women Only 79

Early Ambulance Service 80

First Tornado: Funnel-Shaped with Tip Glowing 81

Red November, Black November 82

From Sharecropper to Landowner 83

"What Did I Say?" 86

Judge A's Tongue Lashings 87

Part V Naughty in a Playful Way

Bosomy Display, but No Ankle Showing! 89

Skillful Intuition and Timely Announcement 90

Renting Church Pews and Other Church Records 90

"Longs" or "Shorts"? 91

Jovial Comeback: All in a Day's Work 91

Two Hound Pups and Squire Adam's Hat 91

Wicked Inflation 92

1869 Hotel Breakfast "Feast"? 93

Part VI Factories, Mills and Businesses

Merchants 95

Depression 95

Short-Term Walkouts and Picker Sticks 96

From Harassed Mill Spooler to Minister's Wife 102

Hard to Be Broke 103

Three-Day Battle over Wages 105

More or Less Trapped 106

Cone Revolution Mill Leaflet for Women 109

Appendix: Recipes Probably Served in Old Greensborough 113

Bibliography 121

About the Author 125