Junaluska is one of the earliest black communities in western North Carolina.

It began with a small population of individuals who settled in from the hillside between the town of Boone and Howard's Knob, the mountain that rises nearly a thousand feet above the county seat of Watauga.

The community began to coalesce by 1898 and by 1918, following construction of a black primary school, numerous black owned residences and the Boone Mennonite Brethren Church.

Black people became a permanent part of the fabric of Appalachia.

Dating back 400 years, the church, for many black people, is more than a place of worship.

It is the heart and strength of the community.

For Junaluskans, this was the Boone Mennonite Brethren Church, pastored by Reverend Rhonda Horton, known to some as the Moses of our North Carolina churches for his leadership of the black Mennonites across the state, his memories are some of the earliest on record of day to day life in Junaluska.

It was completely black when I was growing up.

Now it was more integrated, but it was divided into two sections the hill and the mountain.

The mountain was where the folks lived that had gardens and raised hogs and pigs and things like that.

And the hill was closer to town so we considered ourselves the city folks and the mountain was the country folks.

Growing up in Junaluska was great and people loved each other.

We loved each other and we still do.

We had our own ball team and their name was the Boone Mountain Lions, and we had our own black school and black teachers and we had our own barber shops and there were ladies that did hair, did alterations.

We had a couple little grocery stores.

So we were privileged that we rarely ever got out of the community.

We were pretty isolated here in Boone and we loved it.

We didn't have to worry about going to town and seeing people.

So I don't know how old I really was when I realized there were white people.

But when schools integrated, there was a different story and we had to go to the white school.

Integration was so traumatic for me and several of my classmates that we just dropped out.

I can remember riding the bus and sometimes, many days, we would get off at the school, but we would sneak back home to the community and hide until it was time for school to be out.

We just hated it that bad.

She just did not like being treated like she wasn't as good as anybody else.

And she went on, I don't know if she'll tell you that she got her nursing degree.

She and my sister Louise did.

And then Sandy went on two more years.

They were RNs when they retired.

So it was there.

It's just that people didn't realize it or they weren't used to the idea of black people being as smart as white people.

I guess I don't know.

Junaluska is what began as a segregated community in the 19th century.

Their opportunities opened up certainly with integration and after the civil rights movement.

But at the same time, there was outmigration because there were more job opportunities and more educational opportunities outside the community.

And over my lifetime, I've seen a lot of people who were not here, who have died or moved away from the community.

And I came to realize there were a lot of people who didn't know that there was a Junaluska community.

And I thought, hey, we've been so much a part of the town of Boone.

We need to make sure people know we're out there.

One of the first projects that we did, the largest one was to put the monument at the old town cemetery where there was over 70 or 80 black people buried there that people didn't even know that it was the cemetery.

So it was important to us to keep our history alive.

My daughter Lynn and and other members of the Junaluska Heritage Association and even the community--Junaluska community--who are always, always behind us.

We started getting together, having Jubilees, Juneteenth meetings, and our group is responsible for a new book that we had published.

African-Americans have been relatively invisible in Appalachia.

So this book is one of the first to really describe an African-American community that is still in existence and is still vibrant today.

I would like for people to know that we we are here and we've always been here.

We just want people to know we're proud of Boone.

Boonies is made possible by the Watauga Economic Development Commission.

Also by First Security Insurance.