Story by Macy Meyer
Photography by Gabrielle Strickland
PRINCEVILLE, North Carolina — What Kelsi Dew said stunned her mother into silence.
“I’m moving back.”
While those three words seem so simple, Kelsi said them with such conviction that Karen Dew was floored. Kelsi grew up in the small town of Tarboro, in the heart of Edgecombe County, and she swore she would never return when she left in 2007 to attend Appalachian State University.
“That’s why she chose App, because it was the furthest she could go without going out of state,” Karen said.
Boone offered Kelsi everything her hometown could not — space, time to grow, a freshness that comes from a place where no one knows who she is or what her parents do or which house in the neighborhood is hers.
So why was she coming back?
Kelsi couldn’t help herself. Like kinetic attraction between two magnets, everything in her life was pulling her back. But it wasn’t nostalgia.
It was history. She moved to Greenville to earn her master’s degree in history and then accepted a job as a Historical Outreach Coordinator in Princeville, the town that straddles the Tar River with her birthplace.
Her interest started in a cultural anthropology course at Appalachian State despite Kelsi not knowing what anthropology meant before enrolling in school. One course led to another until Kelsi was so deeply invested in the history and anthropology departments, that she knew she had found her life’s calling. History consumed her.
There, in a course on African American history, Kelsi’s lifelong disdain for her hometown began to melt away. The passion for history started when Kelsi really learned about her hometown for the first time. When she really learned about the twin towns that represented each of her parents: her father in Princeville and her mother in Tarboro.
“There was just all of these connections of ‘Holy crap, I live in a place that is so interesting, and now I want to learn about it,’” Kelsi said. “I lived there for 18 years and had no idea about all of these things that absolutely makes this place wonderful.”
Princeville is the oldest town incorporated by African Americans in the United States. After being established by formerly enslaved peoples after the Civil War, the majority-Black town has fought through social and economic difficulties relating to race disparity. Princeville has survived through slavery, the Reconstruction period, the Jim Crow South, systemic racism and government negligence— and decades of tumultuous floods.
Between the years of 1800 and 1958 the Tar River, which splits Tarboro and Princeville, the town flooded seven times. A levee built in 1965 to regulate water levels failed in 1999 during Hurricane Floyd. The town was submerged for days, and homes were destroyed.
Kelsi can still feel her fear of the rising waters during the hurricane. She can still see the signs of water damage on the walls in her father’s home. It’s a permanent reminder of what they lived — and survived — through. Life is defined by how many times a person’s house has been flooded. People know well the stress of evacuation, the hardship of displacement, the disappointment of waiting for FEMA, and the destruction of everything they had. From Floyd to Matthew in 2017 to Florence in 2018 to Dorian in 2019, residents barely began rebuilding before another devastating flood arrived.
But, in that classroom in Boone, Kelsi learned about Mayos Crossroads, the region where her maternal grandparents owned a farm. She learned about her home, the cemeteries she visited as a child, the cemetery she would go to on her first date with her now-partner, James Goldberg. She learned about Princeville’s resilience. Not the flood disasters.
Why didn’t she know about this? she wondered.
The simple answer is the element that gives life, but is often so intimately associated with devastation in Edgecombe County: water.
Because of the decades of floods, Princeville rarely can preserve its rich history.
“We are now collecting data, research and artifacts that represent the town of Princeville,” Kelsi said. “Because of persistent flooding, there are a lot of artifacts and items that are lost, by no fault other than flooding.”
When Kelsi moved back home, she made a commitment to preserving and protecting history. Even when her father, a lifelong resident of Princeville, grew sicker with complications of hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver in 2017, Kelsi moved in to care for him while continuing her research on Princeville’s history.
Goldberg says Kelsi thrives in her historian work because she sees objects differently.
“Look what I found,” Kelsi will say with the giddy excitement of a child finding a new toy. Goldberg will look it over, squint, but settle with responding back, “It looks like a piece of rust.”
He doesn’t see what she sees. A conversation with Kelsi will prove to Goldberg just how wrong he is, when Kelsi shows artifacts more than 100 years old, relaying the life history of the previous owner.
A headstone shows Kelsi the wealth of a person, a brick shows skilled labor, coins and metalwork and pottery paints a picture that Kelsi interprets. She learns from the objects, then she shares that with residents — and eventually, she hopes to share it with the nation through a permanent museum that hosts exhibits of objects she is discovering now.
“The information that Kelsi has so diligently collected, and continues to collect, will serve a very instrumental purpose as we continue to move forward wanting to share about the town of Princeville —not just locally, but across the state, across the nation,” Dr. Glenda Knight, Princeville’s Town Manager, said.
Kelsi’s research is her greatest commitment. She knows the town like the back of her hand, even a casual drive around the county consists of Kelsi identifying every property passed and a quick history lesson. Kelsi calls Edgecombe County a gem, and to her, it is a treasure.
“Her energy is exactly what the town needs as it relates to building a community back bigger, better and bolder,” Knight said. “Just to know she is that passionate about the town of Princeville is very special.”
From never returning to never leaving, Kelsi’s relationship with her hometown has been tumultuous — much like the history of the town. But Kelsi feels the strength of the town, and the love from her fellow residents who are determined to stay there despite the flooding. The misconceptions about the town – the rumors that Princeville is less-than, and the associations with drugs and high-unemployment that give Princeville such negative connotations – only fuel Kelsi to prove them wrong.
“She’s able to show the history and preserve it, and it tells a story of who was here and how they got here,” Goldberg said. “It’s a great community that’s being reborn now.”
Princeville is historical, mysterious, gutted and resilient, often nearly all at once. But that’s what drives Kelsi to the greatest lengths — because Princeville has always been that way. The people have always been that way.
“These people have held the community down consistently for 135 years,” Kelsi said. “You have this multi-layering of reasoning of why this community shouldn’t exist but it does. And it exists because of the people, and working with what you have, and being happy with what you have. I’m just happy to be a small part of it.”
Kelsi Dew and her partner, James Goldberg, pose for a portrait in her late father’s home that they now live in together. This home has experienced water damage from the many floods that have plagued Princeville, but they have done their best to make it their own and brighten the place and make it more lively. 
Kelsi Dew feeds her chickens in her backyard of what used to be her father’s home. Kelsi and her partner moved in after his passing and brought life to the place in the form of many chickens and cats. 
Kelsi shows her book, “Images of America: Edgecombe County, Volume II” book. In it, she deliberately points out an image of a flood that hapened in Princeville. She describes that many different sources have the incorrect amount of times a flood have occured, and the town site only lists major floods. In her research she’s found that there have been over twenty floods. 
This mural is what Princeville dubs the Heritage Park Mural. Right now, the town is working on long-term plans to perserve the mural, including having a photographer that came out to digitize it. This mural has been underwater, flooded with the rest of Princeville, but still stands in pretty good condition. Right now, there are talks about moving the mural to Freedom Hill. It seems fitting to many members of the comunity as the white sign on the right side of the mural denotes “Freedom Hill.” 
Kelsi Dew stands in front of the slight flooding of the Tar River to show an image on her partner’s phone of the same spot that captured when the flooding was almost to the bottom of the bridge. The water levels of the Tar River dangerously fluctuate a lot with the weather and can give the residents a moment’s notice before they have to evacuate. Kelsi promises that she has an evacuation plan in place, not for her items, but to save her chickens and cats. My girls, she calls the chickens fondly. 
Right by Freedom Hill is Abraham Wooten House, one of the oldest houses in Princeville. Kelsi is working on trying to get a grant to get a better foundation to keep it there. She would love to see it be a newly renovated property, perhaps a heritage museum, so show the rich history of this area. 
On Kelsi’s living room wall she has some images of her father and her as a child. “Imagine finding images of someone who passed–someone you thought you didn’t have any images of.” She describes that this house was a blessing. When she moved in and had to sort through the few of the items her father had, she donated and gave away what she could and kept a few others. She holds these images near ot her heart.
Happy that she has a great interest in Princeville. I hope the town board will bring the citizens in before any big changes or decisions are made. WE are what make Princeville great.
This is and outstandind story that gives such a feel good reading it. Working with and talking with Kelsi can literally take you on a trip back into history. It’s not too often that you find a person whom one THINKS should not have a vested interest in something or some place that doesn’t necessarily look like them, but when you do you should charish them and not aim to destroy them. Who’s to say you could be setting up ambush for your own demise or lack. I am reminded of a song that my mom use to sing in the old Penacostal church we grew up in; HolyTemple Church, the song was Any way you bless me Lord I’ll be satified. God has blessed Princeville with a JEWEL and I am satisfied. Anyone who is not satisfied keep living you will catch up.