The Rebel got the name at the end of the 20th Century. Then, the world was familiar. It was human civilization as humans had become accustomed, the realization of thousands of years of evolution both physical and emotional. Technology made the modern day convenient for those with money to afford it, and the great disparities between the rich and the poor that would disappear by the middle of the next century were at their pinnacle.
The Rebel had been known as Maxwell Roberson, resident of Ladoga, North Carolina and in the year 2014 he was a computer programmer by trade. Though he worked for a large company that produces virtual reality technology, he spent much of his free time carefully archiving the history of Ladoga. His greatest passion project was creating a complete virtual recreation of the town of Ladoga that could be used to show changes to the town over the centuries. Though he never completed this project, his work was immersive and he made it available to anyone in town with the technology to experience the aspects of the project he had completed. Users could walk down M— St of Ladoga in four different time periods including the town’s founding in the 1700s, the period of reconstruction following the abolition of slavery in the 1800s, the industrialization of America in the 1900s, and the city in the year 2000.
In order to perfect his technology, the Rebel spent a lot of time in the virtual reality experiencing it and diagnosing any glitches he encountered. It was there that he realized the evolution of M— St from a thoroughfare for wagons with posts for repair and for buying alcohol in the 1800s, to the attempted creation of a downtown area complete with a hotel, two restaurants and two dedicated bars in the 1900s, to its eventual status as part of the Bottoms and the site of low-income housing in the 2000s. He puzzled at the changes the street had seen over the life of the town and he eventually uncovered the old mill that had been located in east Ladoga and employed many poor Scotch-Irish and African American Ladogans who lived on the east side. The old mill processed cotton into fabric and also made linens, underwear, socks, and tshirts. Alphonse Norman, a wealthy entrepreneur and owner of the mill was the money behind the attempt to make M— St into Ladoga’s main street because of its proximity to the mill that thrived and helped the town at large. The mill couldn’t contend with competition from Cannon Mill in Cabarrus county and eventually closed, devastating Ladoga’s east side. Many whites who had been employed by the Norman Mill, moved west and became the hands that built what would become downtown Ladoga and many of the mansions that are a prize to the reclusive billionaires who settle in the town. Black craftsmen were largely excluded from those employment opportunities and the real division of Ladoga’s east and west sides became apparent. It wasn’t until the influx of animal processing plants that blacks were able to find reliable work in Ladoga that paid the federal minimum wage, but that was hardly enough to attain the wealth that the west enjoyed.
Norman Mill was visible from M— St in the 1900s, and in the 2000s, the Rebel saw that it was the spot of Big Jim’s pond. The pond has a very bittersweet history to blacks of the city. It was the only place where they could swim in the sweltering summers even though Ladoga had three city operated pools, two in west Ladoga, and one just at the respected demarcation of west and east where many poor whites lived. Big Jim’s pond provided relief for many black Ladogans in the hot summer, but it was a dangerous place to swim and it was common belief that at least one child died there during each of the summer months. One side of the pond was like a rocky cliff with a face of about ten yards. The bottom of the pond is just as rocky as the cliff face, crews had used dynamite to level the land for the mill and though the pond was the size of a lake, much of it was the scarred, rocky Earth that had been flooded to make a reservoir for water.
The Rebel was appalled at the very real way that racism had shaped the evolution of the town he’d loved so much. Racism had created Big Jim’s pond, that was necessary for the city in the eyes of its planners, but would be difficult to fit into the plan of the west side that attracted wealthy residents from all over. This decision had essentially sealed the fate of future east Ladogans who seemingly sacrificed their children to the sloppy city planning of Ladoga’s founders.
Maxwell Roberson became the Rebel when he led a march on city hall, demanding reparation for Ladoga’s east side in the form of diversified business investments in that part of the city. He led his march in rebellion against systemic racism that had created dangerous living conditions for black people in the city. And he marched with whomever believed in his rebellion for forty days before the city presented him with a plan that he found adequate.
Ladoga was never the same again. It was a victory before the world changed forever, but the Rebel Max would honor it until his death.
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