PRINCEVILLE, N.C. — As she exits her hometown’s only restaurant clutching an order of cabbage and hush puppies, Carolyn Suggs Bandy pauses a moment, considering the importance to her of a place that, at nearly 140 years old, stakes a claim as the oldest town chartered by Black Americans.
“It is sacred to me,” says Bandy, 65. “We got roots in this town.”
