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The McCrory YMCA, whose roots are in Charlotte's Broooklyn community, was founded in 1936 as the first branch for Black people in North Carolina.

A historic branch of the YMCA is marking its 85th anniversary.

A community celebration of the McCrorey branch is today from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at 3801 Beatties Ford Road. Food tricks, entertainment, COVID-19 vaccinations and school supplies will be available. Activities will be held outside, and face masks are encouraged. The McCrory Branch, founded in 1936 in the Brooklyn community in Second Ward, has undergone many changes over the years, but remains an important part in its community.

“That is 85 years of growing teen leaders into dynamic citizens, 85 years of programming to reduce active older adult isolation, 85 years of affordable childcare for working parents,” event co-chair Jon Ham said in an email, “85 years of health and wellness programming with a focus on health disparities most likely to impact people of color, and 85 years of being a beacon of hope for everyone to improve in spirit, mind and body.

Founded in 1936 as the Brooklyn McCrorey Branch at 317 South Caldwell St., the branch was an essential part of the all-Black neighborhood during the nation’s era of racial apartheid. Henry Edwards Brown, a traveling secretary for YMCA’s national African American initiative established an autonomous YMCA for Black people in Charlotte in 1883, and the Charlotte association co-founded by Robert Bruce, raised funds for a new building around 1899.

The Brooklyn branch opened in 1936 in rented space at 416 East Second St., offering night classes in arithmetic, grammar, citizenship, club meetings, Bible studies, recreation, presentations, and music programs. Two years after opening, the branch served more than 1,000 boys with activities like transition housing, baseball and boxing as well as a savings club, church and movies. During World War II, the branch was renovated to provide dormitory space for men looking for work in the defense industry, which shifted its mission.

“Every week from three to five boys drift into the YMCA; ragged, and most of the time, forlorn and hungry,” branch executive secretary C.T. Perkins wrote in the Charlotte Observer. “They come from Georgia, South Carolina or from the smaller cities in North Carolina, after having heard of the many defense jobs in this area. They are more or less penniless, without either enough money to go or to stay, but somehow [sic] they manage to find the “Y”; looking at it for that salvation which will free them from worry. When asked why they are such a long distance from home, the answer usually is ‘All the other boys are leaving home so mama let me leave too.’ They are young boys oft times only 16 or 17, good fellows at heart, but unless given help, prospective delinquents.”

A new YMCA was opened in 1951 as the Henry Lawrence McCrorey Memorial YMCA to honor of the president emeritus of Johnson C. Smith University (1907-47). As Charlotte officials launched programs to tear down Brooklyn in the 1950s and ‘60s, the community’s YMCA branch relocated to the current 18-acre site on Beatties Ford Road. The 21,000-foot facility, which opened in 1969, included a center with an Olympic-size pool, gymnasium, and dressing rooms for men and women.

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