For 30 years when the lines of segregation in Durham were more clearly drawn, the Algonquin Tennis Club gave African-American residents a place to gather.
It was a hub of social activity along Fayetteville Street from the 1930s until a fire in the 1960s destroyed its storied clubhouse.
It also was the birthplace of the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs, now the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, one of the city’s most powerful civic organizations.
