By Torrie Walker
Special To The Carolinian
You walk down the street and familiar faces greet you from every direction. Someone waves from across the sidewalk. The smell of fried catfish drifts from Bell's Restaurant as people gather inside for dinner. Down the street, a crowd begins to form outside the Roxy Theatre, eager to see the latest film. The neighborhood is alive with conversation, music and movement.
This is The Block.
Today, much of it is gone.
But one little-known film preserved what time nearly erased.
Released in 1948, Pitch a Boogie Woogie captured a glimpse of Greenville's thriving Black business district at a time when Black communities were creating their own spaces for business, entertainment and fellowship. More than 75 years later, the film remains one of the few visual records of a neighborhood that helped shape the city's Black history.
Bill Myers remembers that neighborhood firsthand.
"It was the center of activities," said Myers, executive director of the Freeman Round House and African American Museum in Wilson. "Everybody who did anything would migrate to the block. People would congregate on the block. People would walk from all parts of town just to stand around on the block and see the ladies go by. All the activity was centered around the block."
Growing up on The Block, Myers watched Greenville's Black community gather around restaurants, churches, barbershops, beauty salons, pool halls and social clubs, all within walking distance of one another.
"It was very tight-knit," Myers said. "I lived on the block. I was raised by my grandmother who lived on the block."
For Myers, Pitch a Boogie Woogie is more than a piece of history.
"I remember very, very well," he said. "I was a little boy."
His uncle, Ernest Glover, worked as the projectionist at Greenville's Roxy Theatre, where much of the film was shot.
"He would always let me come up and watch him work," Myers said. "So I happened to be there to see a lot of the filming. I remember that very, very clearly as a little boy."
According to Myers, theater owner John Warner wanted the film to celebrate Greenville's Black community.
"He wanted to do things that would glorify the people in the Black community," Myers said. "So he got a lot of Wilsonians, then he went into Greensboro and got musicians to come and perform."
Decades later, filmmaker and historian Alex Albright began researching the forgotten film. What started as curiosity soon became an effort to document a neighborhood whose history had largely faded from public memory.
"It started with just trying to figure out what the movie was," Albright said. "Then the making of the documentary got us into the story."
As Albright interviewed former musicians, cast members and residents, he realized the story extended far beyond the film itself.
"The documentary gives you much more of the musicians' memory and less of the film," Albright said. "The process was just trying to create a narrative."
That narrative uncovered more than a forgotten movie. It revealed a neighborhood where Black-owned businesses, churches and entertainment venues created a close-knit community despite the realities of segregation.
As Greenville changed, so did The Block.
"My people wanted better housing," Myers said. "They wanted a better neighborhood."
The changes were gradual. Businesses closed, longtime residents moved away and community leaders who had once organized events and brought neighbors together passed on.
"I remember my good friend Thomas Foreman, who was always making things happen," Myers said. "'Let's have a party. Let's have a meeting. Let's do this.' Well, he passed, and we lost that."
For Albright, the greatest loss wasn't simply the buildings.
"The people that lived there are telling me what I think was lost," he said. "That was a sense of community."
Although many of the businesses have closed and several buildings have been demolished, pieces of The Block remain. Bell's Restaurant still stands, and a mural now honors the neighborhood and the businesses that once made it the heart of Black Greenville.
For Myers, remembering The Block is about remembering the people who built it.
More than 75 years after Pitch a Boogie Woogie was filmed, the movie continues to preserve the sights and spirit of a neighborhood that shaped generations of Black Greenville. Through the memories of those who lived there, The Block continues to tell its story.
"There are people who did so much," Myers said. "The things that people tried to do to make sure there would be businesses... the churches, the music clubs, the entertainment. All of that should be remembered and not forgotten."
