1600 Madison Avenue
Originally built in 1960, this house was displaced by construction of Brookshire Freeway and moved to this address in 1967 by JCSU Professor William E. Bluford, Sr., and his wife Ocala, a public school teacher. In addition to a long career teaching history at Smith, Prof. Bluford was among the early African Americans employed as visiting professor at Winthrop University as it desegregated. In 1968 he ran unsuccessfully for Mecklenburg County Commission, the first black Republican to do so in the twentieth century. As the Civil Rights movement opened opportunities for public service, he won appointment to several boards including UNC Charlotte’s Board of Trustees, and he became the first African American on the Charlotte Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission.