2025 at the North Carolina Folklife Institute: Stories, Partnerships, and the Work Ahead
As 2025 comes to a close, the North Carolina Folklife Institute reflects on a year shaped by collaboration, listening, and deep engagement with communities across the state. Our work this year centered the people who carry cultural knowledge forward – artists, tradition bearers, apprentices, and public servants – and the partnerships that make this work […]
Agri-tourism in North Carolina’s Happy Valley
by Leda Hartman North Carolina’s Happy Valley, in the Blue Ridge foothills, is known for its pristine beauty and its traditional music and stories. Development is threatening to eclipse the community’s old way of life. But one local farmer is determined not to let that happen. Tony Jones hopes to protect the Happy Valley’s heritage […]
Prime Time Steppers
by Leda Hartman Stepping is a performance and movement style popularized a century ago by African American fraternities and sororities. Stepping has a strong link to the past, with roots that go all the way back to Africa. But it also has a vibrant future. These days, younger kids of all races are doing it. […]
Strike at the Wind: the Struggle to Sustain a Culture
In the southeastern North Carolina town of Pembroke, it’s hard to come by anyone who hasn’t heard the name Henry Berry Lowery. The 19th-century Native American is a cultural icon for the Lumbee population there.
[sc_embed_player fileurl=”http://www.ncfolk.dreamhosters.com/audio/StrikeattheWind.mp3″] Listen to the podcast
Welcome to the Table
Are you a closet chowhound with a passion for our state’s culinary history? A connoisseur of little country cafes, old recipes, and backyard barbecues? Do you turn every road trip into a chance to learn more history, and also a chance to find a new local delicacy or a great new restaurant? If you answered […]
Hatteras Farewell
A couple weeks ago, I was a guest at the Hatteras fishing community’s Day at the Docks. It’s a wonderful celebration of that Outer Banks village’s fishing heritage and living traditions, and I felt deeply honored to be part of it. Originally founded after hurricane Isabel in 2003 as a day to celebrate the island’s […]