Southeast Raleigh has always been a place where people built their own future.
This isn’t a neighborhood we chose at random. Fayetteville Street, South Saunders, Garner Road, the Rock Quarry Road corridor — these streets carry a history of Black excellence and self-determination that reaches back to Reconstruction, long before our club existed.
Learning, enterprise and self-reliance, block by block.
Two historic HBCUs, one corner of the city
Shaw University, founded in 1865, is the oldest historically Black college in the American South. St. Augustine’s University followed in 1867. Together they made this part of Raleigh a center of Black higher education while Reconstruction was still underway across the region.
Raleigh’s “Black Main Street”
In the early-to-mid 20th century, East Hargett Street was known across the state as a hub of Black-owned banks, insurance companies, theaters and shops thriving under segregation — a legacy of independence and enterprise that this club draws on directly.
Neighbors organizing to build the future they want.
Like many Black neighborhoods across the South, this area also carried the weight of mid-century highway construction and urban renewal that reshaped entire blocks. We don’t dwell there — we name it because it’s true, and because today’s Southeast Raleigh picks up a thread that never actually broke.
Southeast Raleigh Promise’s work along the Rock Quarry Road corridor, including the Beacon Site at the center of our Digital Divide initiative, is that same self-determination, still going.
Where you’ll find us.
Fayetteville Street
Bus-stop shade, storefronts and the daily commute.
South Saunders Street
The corridor connecting downtown to the neighborhoods we serve.
Garner Road
Homes, small businesses and generations of neighbors.
Rock Quarry Road
Home to the Beacon Site and the SER Promise corridor.