St. Augustines College entrance

Entrance to St. Augustines College, Raleigh; (c) Soul Of America

Raleigh Trivia

Raleigh Metro Area has a 1,200,000 population.

Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina.

African American population in Raleigh-Durham Combined Metro Area is over 325,000.

Raleigh was featured prominently in a number of Top 10 Lists by Forbes, MSNBC and Money magazine, due to its quality of life and favorable business climate.

The 7,000-acre, Durham-based Research Triangle Park, one of the largest research parks in the world, contains over 140 organizations and 45,000 employees. More than 100 are research and development-related, including the North Carolina Supercomputing Center, the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The combined metro areas have been the location or subject for 20 major movies and scores of other television and advertising productions.

In 2008, the city’s Fayetteville Street Historic District joined the National Register of Historic Places.

Visitors to the combined metro area number more than 18 million annually.

Famous Residents

Notable people were born or made their mark here include:

John Hope Franklin – Historian and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner
Ella Baker – Civil Rights activist who helped organize Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
Maynard Jackson – Former mayor of Atlanta
Rev. Douglas Moore – pioneer who supported the earliest sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement
Mary Lou Williams – Famed jazz composer and teacher
Floyd McKissick, Sr. – Early civil rights leader and father of a US Congressman
John Merrick, Charles C. Spaulding & Dr. Aaron Moore – Co-founders of North Carolina Mutual Insurance
Dr. James E. Shepard – Founder of North Carolina Central University
Dr. Charles Johnson – President of the National Medical Association
Shirley Caesar – Gospel vocalist
Clyde McPhatter – R&B vocalist for the Drifters
Nneena Freelon – Jazz vocalist
Coach John McClendon – Pioneering basketball coach whose strategies are still emulated today
Sam Jones – 1st African American drafted in the first round by the NBA
Dr. Leroy Walker – Former President of the US Olympic Committee
Ernie Barnes – NFL football player and artist
Chuck Davis – Choreographer
Blind Boy Fuller – Piedmont Blues vocalist

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