Slave auctions, an execution: A city wonders what to do with its former town hall
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – Archie Beebe was executed on the southeast corner of the Fayetteville Market House on Feb. 10, 1867.
He died in a pool of his own blood after being shot in the head by a former Confederate army captain named William Tolar who was part of a crowd that came after Beebe.
His murder came one day after being accused of assaulting a white woman. Beebe was marched from the jail to the town hall on the second floor of the Market House for magistrate's court and was met by a mob wielding weapons, seeking to kill him as he was escorted out of the building.
Police tried to stop the assault on Beebe. Three people, including Tolar, were arrested and sentenced to hanging for his murder, but they all received pardons from then-President Andrew Johnson.
In the discussions some Fayetteville residents have about the history of the Market House, the murder of Beebe, a Black man who drove a wagon transporting goods, is often overlooked but is one of the many harrowing events to take place at the building in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Market House, topped by a clock tower, sits in the center of downtown Fayetteville. The image of the two-story brick building with white archways and a large, open first floor has been printed on official documents, high school diplomas, postcards and is emblazoned on the city seal as a historical symbol for Fayetteville.
The history of the building, however significant, has always been complex.
Between Beebe’s death, the innumerable slave auctions, the modern-day protests and arrests that all took place at the Market House, the conversations about the history of the long-contested building has been uncomfortable for many who grew up in Fayetteville. As the city council moves to repurpose the Market House, Fayetteville residents are taking another look at the building’s legacy and its purpose for a progressing future.
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‘A beautiful ornament’ or a ‘slave market’
Fayetteville became the state capital after North Carolina was ratified as the 12th state in 1789 and hosted a convention for the state’s signers of the United States Constitution.
That same year, the city was also the site of a legislative session that chartered the University of North Carolina. These events took place in the old state house that burned down in 1831.
In May 1832, a new building took the place of the destroyed state house. The Fayetteville Observer, now part of the Paste BN Network, wrote at the time, “the Market House surmounted by a Town Hall and belfry, a beautiful ornament to the town, has just been completed.”
Like the state house, the newly constructed Market House operated as a center for meetings and trade in Fayetteville. The second level of the building housed the Town Hall until 1906 and the ground floor was the site of an open-air market until 1907.
Prominent people, including U.S. presidents, governors and war generals, have visited the Market House, according to Fayetteville historian Bruce Daws. In 1974 the building was designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Though the Market House was not designed specifically for slave auctions, enslaved African and African Americans were sold at both the state house and the Market House through the end of the Civil War. Some documents from the 18th and 19th century referred to the Market House as the “slave market.”
In 2000, Fayetteville Observer Publisher Charles Broadwell found files that listed the descriptions of enslaved people who were sold at the Market House from 1833 to 1863. More than 50 people were sold in that timeframe. But, Broadwell noted, “dozens and dozens” were sold in and around the Market House and in the state house before it was burned.
Enslaved people were sold either with their families, individually or in pairs. They were sold to settle debts and often sold when their owners died. Some had names listed in the ads and others did not. Some ads had brief descriptions of the enslaved person's physical fitness, age and job skills.
Fayetteville's slave trade was not like that of larger antebellum cities. Still, by 1860, nearly one-third of Fayetteville's population was comprised of enslaved people, Broadwell said.
A segregated city
Jimmy Buxton, the president of the Fayetteville chapter of the NAACP, remembers as a young man in the 1950s and '60s using the back and side entrances to enter certain buildings in the city.
Born and raised in a segregated Fayetteville, Buxton was one of the first Black students to participate in sit-in demonstrations seeking to integrate the city.
He was in the 9th grade in 1962 when he and two classmates walked into the Miracle Theater and sat in seats on the first floor – a forbidden act for Black people then.
“I don’t remember the movie, I don’t even know what it was about,” Buxton, 74, said recently. “We heard people call us a few names, but we sat there the whole movie.”
The Market House, Buxton said, was often the site of protests during the 1960s after the sit-in movement was ignited in North Carolina.
Unlike many residents in Fayetteville, he doesn’t agree that the building should be torn down or moved.
Buxton said he was taught about the slave auctions and other tragedies at the Market House, but he believes the problem of racism and racial injustice is much bigger than the building itself.
“The way I look at it, that building didn’t do anything to anybody. It was the people inside that building that did harm to other people,” he said. “The building just stood there and was built at the hand of, probably slaves, freemasons.”
From entering buildings in the back, to being called “boy” and the N-word, to dedicating his life to fighting for racial equity, Buxton thinks people who want to see the Market House demolished are “missing the point” about the issue of race in the city.
“They’re talking about the building – and racists are walking around them every day,” Buxton said. “The ones that have got the hatred in them are still here.”
Growing up, Buxton said, he would see white people spit chewing tobacco in the “colored” water fountains. He believes some of the descendants of the slave traders and others who hurt Black Americans under the arches of the Market House are still around probably fighting to preserve the building today.
In the 1970s, a billboard reading “This is Klan Country. Love it or Leave it,” met drivers on a road not far from Fayetteville. The sign, like many others around the state at the time, evoked fear and anger for Black residents living near them, Buxton said.
Buxton said he remembers a Klan billboard in the late 1970s that reminded him of where he was returning to after an 18-month tour in Okinawa. Even today, a 90-foot pole waving the flag of the Confederacy sits along a highway north of Fayetteville.
“People say that (the Market House) reminds them of slavery but if that’s the case, everywhere you go there’s something to remind you,” Buxton said.
Market House controversy hits a boiling point in 2020
As smoke billowed from the second floor of the Market House on May 31, 2020, voices chanting "Black Lives Matter" almost drowned out the sound of the fire alarm.
Rioters, taking advantage of the fact that scores of peaceful protesters were demonstrating around town, climbed to the second floor of the ornate downtown building and set it ablaze. One person set himself on fire in the process. As the flames grew, some people raised their fists high in the air, many recorded the event on their phones, and a few looked on silently watching the building burn.
People had been protesting in Fayetteville all afternoon that day, six days after a native of the city, George Floyd, was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in the street. Floyd's death, and those of other African Americans slain at the hands of law enforcement, had sparked a summer of unrest nationwide over racial inequity and police brutality in America.
The building thought by many to be a symbol of the city's slave-holding past was the most obvious site for protesters to gather.
As the country tackles tough conversations about racism and its footprint in America, the question begs to be answered: What purpose do landmarks like the Market House have in a progressing nation?
The Fayetteville City Council could not shake the pressure it was getting from residents and activists in the summer of 2020.
While the arguments about the current purpose of the Market House weren’t new, the country was seeing Confederate monuments and other symbols of slavery and segregation being torn down by protesters.
A renewed conversation about the Market House and its purpose seemed inevitable for Fayetteville leaders.
With “Black Lives Do Matter” and “End Racism Now,” freshly painted by Fayetteville artists in the traffic circle around the building, council members in late 2020 promised to survey residents in order to make the best decision about the future of the building.
However, the survey was never conducted by the city council, according to Yamile Nazar, director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for the Fayetteville-Cumberland Human Relations Department. In 2021, the council voted to repurpose the Market House. Their decision opposed the wishes of some residents, activists and others who wanted to see the building demolished.
Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin was originally against any effort to rebrand the Market House.
A native of the city, Colvin said he grew up learning about Beebe's lynching and the slave auctions. Colvin’s great-great-grandfather is believed to have been one of the enslaved men sold there.
“Growing up, (the Market House) wasn’t a positive thing, but it became a fixture where people took pictures, they had programs there, and they did different things, I don’t think really paying attention to the significance of what it is,” Colvin said. “Even my high school diploma had a picture of Market House on it. It became embedded into everyday life, which is a part of why people overlooked it.”
During his tenure on the city council, which began in 2013 before being elected mayor in 2017, Colvin said there were many discussions about the Market House and whether it should represent Fayetteville. As the council made moves to make Fayetteville a more diverse, inclusive city, they looked at "the good, the bad and the ugly" of the Market House, Colvin said.
“Originally, I was adamantly opposed to any connection with the city, and I still am and was not supportive of any enhancement,” he said. “My 97-year-old grandmother called me in when we were in the heat of those discussions and shared some insight from a family perspective.”
Colvin said it was his personal connection to the Market House that shifted the way he viewed it. Several Black families he knows in the city can say the same thing about the building as they have roots in the Fayetteville area dating back to the antebellum era, he said.
Instead of trying to remove the building, Colvin took the approach of highlighting how far Black Fayetteville residents and Black Americans have come.
“As controversial as it is, I think telling the story benefits our future generations,” he said.
Unlike monuments, the Market House was not erected with the intention of honoring the Confederacy. Most Fayetteville residents don’t deny that slave auctions happened at the building but in their arguments to support the Market House, the negative aspects of its history are often ignored.
The denial of slave auctions at the Market House and a history of slavery and racism in the Fayetteville area are what Colvin finds offensive. If the building could ever be a symbol of unity for the city, hard conversations need to be had, he said.
“Any hopes of unification always start with a conversation,” he said. “When people learn about it, and as a community we talk about it, I think that will lead to unification.”
Enslaved Africans and African Americans built the White House, and in 2008 the U.S. saw its first Black president with Barack Obama. Enslaved Black people were said to have built the Market House in Fayetteville and today the city has many Black elected officials. Colvin said these examples show how far the community has come.
“I think that that’s encouraging,” he said.
‘Market House is the jewel and the crown of racism’
Christoppher Stackhouse, the pastor of Lewis Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Fayetteville, doesn’t agree that the Market House could ever be a symbol of unity.
For him, repurposing the Market House means that it will remain standing forever as a divisive symbol in the heart of Fayetteville.
“If they repurpose it and make it a museum, they have finally given it the historical protection that it needs,” Stackhouse said. “We can paint this conversation in any way we want to, but that Market House is the jewel and the crown of racism. There’s a reason they made it a symbol of this city.”
He said the council’s vote did not reflect the opinions of most Fayetteville residents.
In 2020, a Change.org petition gathered 126,464 signatures in favor of demolishing the Market House. Some city council members said that despite the signatures, they could not be sure everyone who signed was a resident so they could not fully consider the input. Because of this, the city council created a Market House committee and promised to have forums about the future of the building with a survey that would assess how Fayetteville residents felt about its demolition.
Instead of completing a survey on its own, the council sought the direction of the Department of Justice, and in October the department sent representatives to Fayetteville to determine whether the council made a decision that aligned with residents' wishes.
Results of the DOJ survey are expected to be released soon, according to Colvin.
"(The council) decided they know what’s best for the citizens without giving the citizens an opportunity to cast their vote and make that decision for ourselves," Stackhouse said. "They killed it before it even had a chance. That’s fact."
Myah Warren, a 24-year-old activist and Fayetteville native, is upset that residents will be required to pay to repurpose the building through taxes. If people had an opportunity to vote and decided to keep the building, that would be different, but because the decision was already made, she said, it feels as if they are being forced.
Some support preservation instead
Supporters of the Market House acknowledge the slave auctions and violence that took place at the building in the past. Many of them believe keeping the Market House downtown is a reminder to not repeat the past.
In 2020, the Cumberland County Republican Party adopted a resolution to support the preservation of the Market House. One of the statements in the resolution said that Thomas Grimes, a free Black man, supervised construction of the building. Historians have not confirmed this fact and say the builder of the Market House, is still unknown.
One historian, John C. Cavanagh who did extensive research on the Market House's history, said that it was likely that many enslaved and free Black people were used to construct the Market House after the state house was burned down.
The GOP resolution also called the use of the Market House for slave auctions “brief and infrequent” and that the newspaper advertisements for enslaved people “have caused some to mistakenly believe that the Market House was solely used as a slave market during its early years.”
Fayetteville resident Michael Pinkston is one of the more outspoken supporters of the Market House. He said he believes that the city should preserve the building and move past the "negative images" because the Market House was "used for slave trading" during only a few years of its 190-year history.
"When you think of a market house and when you think of slaves, you don't have any positive connotations," Pinkston said. "You typically think of these horrible pictures you see where there's a white man up there with a whip and he's hanging men and women like pieces of meat to buy. Well, that's not the story of our Market House."
Pinkston calls himself a "student of history" and said removing Confederate monuments and other structures should not be happening around the country.
"We seem to just … want to wipe the face of the earth, scrape it plain, if history has any negative connotations," Pinkston said.
While he said that slavery was "abhorrent," he doesn't agree that people should be trying to overlook the positive things that happened at the building, such as newly freed Black people holding July 4th celebrations there.
"Market House was an incubator for success," Pinkston said. "There are agitators who I believe are just trying to get the people worked up over something, and I have no idea why."
Pinkston, who is a candidate for city council, went to some of the public forums held a couple of years ago about the Market House. He said many Fayetteville residents at the forums had some connection to the enslaved people sold at the building. Many of them, Pinkston said, were against keeping the Market House standing.
In discussions about the repurposing of the Market House, Pinkston said the city should tell the truth about the "less than desirable deeds that took place" but doesn't believe any new construction should happen at the building, citing the building's age and fragility.
"I love this city, and I love the Market House, and I love its people," he said. "What I don't love is all of this hoopla that's going on. We're making much to do about nothing, as Shakespeare would say."
What does the future hold for Market House?
After lengthy discussions about the future of the Market House and despite vocal opposition, the Fayetteville City Council voted last year to repurpose the building instead of demolishing or moving it.
The 9-1 vote came in April 2021 after rioters tried to burn down the Market House following peaceful protests against police brutality in 2020 and after more than 126,000 people signed the Change.org petition to remove the building. The council had been presented with five options on what to do with the building and made an earlier promise to survey Fayetteville residents on their perspectives.
Councilwoman Courtney Banks-McLaughlin was the opposing vote and has since been against any plans to spend money to repurpose the building in the heart of the city's downtown.
In a January council work session, Banks-McLaughlin said she wanted to eliminate any funding to repurpose the building, saying that she would rather spend money on issues facing Fayetteville residents, such as housing and homelessness. Her motion was tabled for discussion during future meetings.
As the city begins to receive funding from the state budget to improve its neighborhoods, the Market House’s repurposing is moving forward despite opposition and doubt from some residents who want the structure demolished.
Representatives from the DOJ, at the request of two council members, came to Fayetteville in October to assess the council’s decision and to hear from residents about their ideas for a rebranding of the Market House.
The council agreed to join a governmental project, known as City-SPIRIT, that would send facilitators from the DOJ to meet with community members for a full day or two, to discuss plans to address critical issues.
The facilitators would then return to Washington, D.C., compile the results from their meetings and send those results back to the city. The report would serve as a guide for the city council on the best way to repurpose the Market House.
In January, representatives from the DOJ returned to Fayetteville for an eight-hour event in which community members both in support and in opposition of the Market House talked about possible repurposing ideas.
Nazar, the city's director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, said the event was productive and expects to get the results from the DOJ report in March or April.
She said she is optimistic about the future of the Market House and thinks it could be a unifying symbol for the city.
“My greatest hope for this community and any other community that’s having these kinds of challenges is to work myself out of a job,” Nazar said. “My greatest hope is that we see the Market House for what it is, it is a symbol with a history and some of that history is not positive.”
Nazar said she hopes that after the building is repurposed, people can visit it and learn.
Others, like Fayetteville residents and activists Mario Benavente and Myah Warren, wanted city leaders to tear Market House down, or at least allowed residents to have a say in the decision.
She said there should have been a vote on the ballot.
“City council as a whole failed us,” Warren said. “They know had they put that on the ballot, the city was going to say tear it down. OK, people might not come out for the local elections, but if they would have heard that Market House was on the ballot, polls would have been full.”
Investigative Reporter Kristen Johnson can be reached at kjohnson1@gannett.com.