Historic Safety Club is revived

Renovation hoped to spark change

RALEIGH -- The Raleigh Community & Safety Club building, a Southeast Raleigh landmark that fell on hard times, has been born again thanks to an $885,000 renovation.

For decades the 8,000-square-foot, cement-block building was a community hub where people gathered for celebrations, meetings and gospel concerts. It also was home to two charitable organizations whose members included the upper crust of the city's African-American community.

Now Passage Home, a non-profit community development corporation, has taken ownership of the building with the help of government and corporate support and plans to return it to its former glory.

The rebirth "has really been a blessing," said Leona Dunn, 75, a longtime club member. "I understand they are going to have a lot of programs that are going to help a lot of folks. I'm always for progress."

The hope is that the building at 513 Branch St. will be a "visible, tangible catalyst" for neighborhood change, said Steve Gruber, Passage Home's development director. The organization has ambitious plans to create low-cost housing and upgrade retail businesses in the surrounding South Park neighborhood, where boarded-up houses are not uncommon.

The new Safety Club will house, among other things: a computer learning lab, a lending library staffed by volunteers, free federal and state income tax services during tax season, and offices for community organizations. An assembly hall, conference room and kitchen are available for rent by the hour.

More than 50 people were on hand Saturday morning to kick off an all-day celebration of the building's grand opening. The affair had many elements of a street fair, including dancing to tunes blasted over outdoor speakers. The celebration continues at 3 p.m. today with a gospel concert to benefit the building fund.

Charity group

The building, completed in 1952, has a rich heritage. It was built by members of the Raleigh Safety Club, who labored on it evenings and weekends.

No one seems to know for sure, but the Safety Club probably was formed in 1949 or 1950. The catalyst was the death of a worker -- due to unsafe working conditions, according to club lore -- at a cottonseed oil mill on the site of what is now the Cargill soybean processing plant, just a few blocks from the club building. The club raised money for the worker's burial and to assist his family.

The Safety Club and its sister organization, the Community Club, a women's group founded in 1945, held meetings in the building and became well-known for their donations to African-American organizations. At their peak in the late 1960s, the two clubs combined had more than 400 members.

When the clubs were formed, the South Park neighborhood was home to African-American doctors and lawyers, and that prosperity was reflected in the clubs.

"It used to be, may I say, upper class," said Dunn, who attended Saturday's festivities. "We had an investigating committee. If you had a bad rep, you couldn't be a member."

Tradition reborn

Elsie Daniel, 73, showed up Saturday with photos taken during the annual "Gospel Mother's Day" programs at the club.

Daniel ran the annual concerts for 20 years, stopping about a decade ago due to health problems. In addition to the music, she would hand out prizes -- hams and fruit baskets -- to the oldest and youngest mothers and the mother with the most children.

"This was the place for the gospel programs for the black folks," she said. "We had a good time here, a shouting good time, yes sir."

But over the years, the neighborhood deteriorated, and many of the clubs' members grew old and died.

Today, only a few dozen members remain. They couldn't afford to keep up with the building's maintenance or the tax payments, and they stopped using it altogether a few years ago. They were in danger of losing the building to foreclosure when Passage Home stepped in.

"They had a need. We had a need," said Jeanne Tedrow, Passage Home's executive director. "We filled each other's needs by joining forces."