According to an undated newspaper article, the “colored branch of the YMCA” formerly known as the Patterson Avenue Y.M.C.A. and now known as the Winston Lake Family YMCA has been existence since 1911. The YWCA for Blacks opened in 1917. In the 1920s, community leaders, both black and white saw the need for a permanent “Negro branch” building and their first goal was to acquire property. The leading black men favored the Old Depot Street Site, and in June 1927 they staged the first major all black money raising drive to be held in the State of North Carolina and possibly the entire South. Their goal of $25, 000 “was big money” and they went after it “with a whoop and hollar.”
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