Joseph C. Price
Elizabeth City, Pasquotank County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Joseph C. Price (1854 1893). Negro orator and teacher. A founder and president of Livingstone College. Born in Elizabeth City. House was 2 miles S.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
Born in Elizabeth City in 1854, Joseph C. Price rose to become one of the most celebrated Black orators and educators of his generation. He was a founder and the first president of Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina, championing higher education for African Americans in the decades after emancipation. His eloquence carried him across the country and abroad before his death in 1893 at just thirty-nine.
Why it matters
Price's life shows how a generation of Black leaders built colleges and institutions from the ground up, insisting that education was the surest path to freedom and equality.
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Food & drink
- Masala Bay Grill13.3 mi away · 1972 Caratoke Highway, Moyock, NC
- Frog Island Seafood Inc14.9 mi away · 3997 Caratoke Highway, Barco, NC
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Related people
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hugh Cale
Elizabeth City, NC
Hugh Cale served in the North Carolina legislature during the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction years, winning seats between 1876 and 1891. In 1891 he sponsored the bill that created the state-supported school for Black teachers that grew into today's Elizabeth City State University. His grave lies about six-tenths of a mile west of this marker.
Peter Weddick Moore
Elizabeth City, NC
Born into slavery in 1859, Peter Weddick Moore became an educator and, from 1891 to 1923, the founding head of the state normal school that grew into Elizabeth City State University. Over three decades he built an institution devoted to training Black teachers for eastern North Carolina. His grave lies about a third of a mile southeast.
Elizabeth City State University
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Elizabeth City State University began in 1891 as a state-supported normal school to train Black teachers, part of the wave of institutions founded across the South after Reconstruction to educate a rising generation of African Americans. It grew into a four-year college by 1939 and attained university status in 1969, tracing the long arc from segregated teacher-training school to full public university.
Rosenwald Schools
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