Winston-Salem

American Visions, April-May, 1995 by Michael L. Pina

Think of Winston-Salem, N.C., and cigarettes probably come to mind, and why not? This is the heart of tobacco country, where the city's most popular visitors' attraction is the hourly tour of the R.J. Reynolds cigarette factory at Whitaker Park. But don't be fooled; Winston-Salem has the cultural diversity of a city twice its size--and it has the tranquillity of a small town. It's a duality hard to match elsewhere; perhaps this is why the poet Maya Angelou has made Winston-Salem her home for some years now.

The city is full of surprises; it lulls you into serenity and keeps you there. Traffic, crowds, crime and sold-out hotels are foreign words in Winston-Salem, and yet this is the kind of family vacation spot that can be overlooked because of what it isn't.

A 15-minute video in Winston-Salem's visitor center sets the stage for appreciating the city's history and its charm. The town of Salem (which later merged with the larger surrounding village of Winston) was founded in 1753 by Moravian immigrants from Germany and Czechoslovakia. This mercantile community was noted up and down the East Coast for its hardworking gunsmiths, tailors, wagonmakers and other craftsmen. The Moravians were also noted for establishing Salem College for Women (which is still open today) and introducing the first trombones to America.

Although the Moravians generally frowned on the institution of slavery, enslaved Africans were crucial to the development of Salem, in ways that many today would find surprising. Slaves accounted for 10 percent of the town's population, and, as it turned out, the Moravian Church proved to be the best thing to happen to them since their abduction from the Mother Continent.

The Moravian Church put a heavy emphasis on hard work and individual responsibility, and the feeling was that church members would be less diligent if they had slaves available to do their work. The church owned all slaves in the community and leased them out as potters, carpenters and bricklayers to citizens when needed. White citizens addressed black residents as sister and brother, and church leaders required that slaves be paid a nominal wage and be provided with adequate clothing and tools. In time, most of the African Americans became bilingual, since they had to speak German to communicate with whites, and both white and black townspeople attended church--and were buried--side by side. Salem's biracial harmony didn't last forever; by the early 19th century, white Moravians began to adopt the segregationist perspective of the rest of the South. In addition, many of the citizens felt that allowing blacks to worship with whites would give the slaves the impression that they were equal, and that could only lead to slave revolts and other problems. By 1822, sadly, Salem was one community with two churches sitting side by side. St. Philip's, the black church, is one of the oldest churches in the South. Today, it is a dilapidated structure that Old Salem Inc. is trying to renovate as a national historic site; the congregation has moved to another part of the city.

Since Old Salem is where it all began, it's only fitting that it be the first stop on any tour of the city. Old Salem is, in fact, a functioning residential community complete with sounds of college students strolling between classes and neighbors socializing on porchies. The area includes 96 buildings spread over 25 city blocks. Seven of the buildings--including the bakery, the doctor's office, the tavern and the gift shop--are open to visitors who have purchased a pass at the Old Salem visitors center.

At the Vogler House, built in 1819, a docent greets guests at the door and tells the story of how the Voglers began as silversmiths but found that it was more profitable to sell jewelry and flatware than to make them. As you move through each of the rooms, a guide dressed in traditional garb tells you more about the family and demonstrates how stoves, spinning wheels and other devices were used. A few doors down the street at the Single Brothers House, you see what it was like to be a single guy in a Moravian community, living in what was, in essence, a glorified dormitory. Here men lived from age 14 to age 21, studying a trade and receiving no pay.

On the next block is the Winkler Bakery, which is a popular spot in the mornings, when visitors drop by to see bread, sugar bread and ginger cookies made in the bakery's wood-stove oven. It is not hard to find; the smells of sugar and ginger lead you right to it.

Not far from downtown, near Wake Forest University, is another smell--that of tobacco, which lets you know you have reached the R.J. Reynolds Cigarette Manufacturing Center at Whitaker Park. The 45-minute tour here is fascinating, even for nonsmokers. (But make no mistake, this is a tour that promotes tobacco, with no mention of cancer or any other cigarette-related health risks.

The tour begins with a discussion of how tobacco is grown, harvested and sold at auction. After a brief mention of the millions of dollars that tobacco companies pay daily in taxes, you are led into the factory itself, where 8,000 cigarettes are made every minute. Giant interconnected machines make filters and attach them to rolled cigarettes, which are boxed, packed in cartons, and then wrapped in cellophane before being shipped out. Meanwhile, you pass by giant containers filled with defective cigarettes that are later recycled.