If the U.S. can?t preserve sites where it fought for its rights, what does that say about maintaining the rights themselves" In 2016, Hurricane Matthew, a category 5 storm, brought strong winds, rain, and catastrophic flooding to North Carolina. Princeville, a town about 65 miles east of Raleigh, was inundated after the adjacent Tar River crested. Over 700 people were evacuated.
While Princeville?s proximity to the river is threatening its existence today, it?s also what helped it come into existence: It?s believed to be the first town chartered by formerly enslaved black Americans. Historians speculate that they were able to settle here because white landowners didn?t want this swath of flood plain.

Travis Klondike, courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation Shiloh Landing, Princeville, North Carolina.

Despite surviving multiple floods and Jim Crow-era racial terror (including a campaign to get the town charter revoked), Princeville may soon disappear. This was the second time in 17 years that Princeville experienced a 100-year flood. In 1999, eight feet of water submerged the town as a result of Hurricane Floyd. Today, residents are debating if they should keep rebuilding or retreat; landscape architects are exploring new infrastructure to gird against the next flood. Financing these resiliency and reconstruction efforts is still a question mark.
Princeville is one of 10 sites named in ?Landslide,? an annual watchlist from The Cul...