Our history

Chapter 1 · 1928–1949

Carolina roots

Walter James Hart was born in 1928 outside Orangeburg, South Carolina, the third son of a tenant farming family. Evelyn Mae Brooks was born three years later in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where her father ran a small grocery.

Like millions of Black Southerners during the Great Migration, both families looked north for steady work and better schools. Walter arrived in New York in 1949.

Chapter 2 · 1951–1975

The house on Maple Street

Walter and Evelyn married in June 1951, shortly before Walter shipped out to Korea. When he came home, they bought a narrow two-story house on Maple Street in Hempstead that would anchor the family for the next seventy years.

Four children grew up there: Harold, Loretta, Raymond and Gloria. Evelyn taught at the elementary school down the block, and Walter's mail route meant nearly everyone in town knew the Harts.

Chapter 3 · 1975–2000

The branches spread out

The children scattered: Harold to Atlanta, Loretta to Baltimore and later Charlotte, Gloria to Washington for medical school. Raymond stayed closest to home, playing jazz clubs in Brooklyn.

The first Hart Family Reunion was held on Maple Street in 1985, with 23 people and one very long folding table.

Chapter 4 · 2000–today

A family across the map

Today the family stretches from Seattle to Charlotte, with four generations and a growing number of great-grandchildren. The reunion still happens every other summer, and the Maple Street house still hosts the Fourth of July.