Mark Lee, left, gives attendees a history lesson in Hayti's legacy.

DURHAM – Traditional West African dance, handmade quilts, and spoken word poetry were a taste of the recent Hayti Heritage Center’s 50th anniversary open house.

The Center is in the historically-Black Hayti neighborhood, which was the heart of what’s treasured as Durham’s former Black Wall Street. Today, it hosts cultural and civic events like concerts, poetry slams and an art gallery. The Center adoringly reminisces the heyday of Black Durham and seeks to recreate it, which can be seen in artifacts preserved in various display cases and plaques throughout the building.

“The building was initially named Hayti Heritage Center after the island nation of Haiti with regard to self-determination and beauty and love and culture and the arts,” said Angel Dozier, marketing and guest experience manager.

The open house featured spoken word by Dasan Ahanu, founder of the Jambalaya Soul Slam; a tour of the building and oral history presentations by Andre Vann and Mark Lee; and an African American Dance Ensemble presentation by teacher Ivy Burch.

2026 will be the inaugural year of Hayti’s own in-house programming, said artistic director Tyra Dixon. Before, the Center was a venue that hosted other organizations, but now it will produce programming.

“It hadn’t been done before, so we were thinking outside the box,” Dixon said. “We want it to be a premier event space where people want to come.” Dixon said Durham is changing, and Hayti hopes to adapt with it. The building is the former location of St. Joseph’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, established after the Civil War by the formerly enslaved leader and missionary Edian Markham. The building was opened as the Hayti Heritage Center in 1975 and is a U.S. National Historic Landmark after St. Joseph’s congregation moved locations.

Former longtime Durham Mayor Bill Bell was also in attendance. “A lot has happened in this community around Hayti, and this is a symbol of what it’s all about,” Bell said.

The event space, which is more “intimate,” is the location of the Jambalaya Soul Slam, which meets every third Saturday of the month at 8 p.m. The Bull City Slam Team emerged out of the Soul Slam and competes in national competitions.

The African American Quilting Circle meets every second Saturday of the month, and quilts are on display in the Lyda Moore Merrick Gallery in the lobby. Merrick was a Black female activist and writer from Hayti who fought for the rights and dignity of Black disabled people, creating the Merrick/Washington Magazine for the Blind.

Danielle McDonald is a member of the quilting circle. She said she likes that everyone has their own creative style and uses it to tell their story

“This is my happy place,” she said. “This is where I de-stress and be creative and let loose.”

Willa Brigham said the quilting circle, which is open to everyone, began through word of mouth. It now has over 60 members. “[Hayti] gave us a safe place to be, so this is home,” she said.

Urban Renewal, a national project that razed Black neighborhoods deemed “blighted” in the 1950s to make way for the interstate highway system, destabilized Hayti.

“I think about the businesses that were lost,” presenter Mark Lee lamented at the open house. A mural on the second floor states that the Durham Freeway “destroyed much of Hayti but replaced little,” displacing over 400 families, and lost an estimated $300 million in today’s dollars. “The promise of a renewed Hayti never came.”

“That’s something that still shocks me every time that I do one of these tours,” Lee said, “is how much we lost and how much we’re still trying to regain.”

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