Source: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, North Carolina

Today we honor the life of Robert Justice, whose marker near the northern edge of Geer Cemetery indicates he was born this day, December 28th in 1846.

Robert’s parents were Amy Jordan and Solomon Justice, both enslaved at Stagville plantation north of what became Durham. As a young child in the mid-1850s, “Bob” appears alongside his mother and two older siblings, David and Mariah, on meticulously kept lists enumerating people the enslavers claimed as property.

A young adult when Emancipation came, Robert quickly set about starting a new life and family of his own. By 1870, he was married to Grace Strudwick, and the couple had 3 young children: Nannie, Harriet, and Robert, Jr.

That same year, his brother David began to buy property at the eastern edge of Durham, and Robert purchased 4 acres from him in 1873. Their land, just south of the rail line and east of the Fayetteville Road, became part of the rapidly developing Hayti community.

Fitting for the building boom, Robert took up carpentry. The Justice brothers joined others in contributing land for the Colored Primitive Baptist Church, which Robert served as a Deacon. The church structure also provided African American children a school building before the completion of the first Whitted School. Meanwhile, Robert and Grace welcomed two more daughters – Rebecca and Christina.

Perhaps related to the loss of his first wife sometime in the 1880s, Robert’s life took a turn. He sold the remainder of his land in Hayti, and purchased an expansive 136 acre tract north of town, not far from the Eno River along the Roxboro and old Snow Hill roads.

He was twice remarried – first to Sallie Davis and then to Lucy Hart Meeks. His family expanded to include at least three more children (Mamie, Flora, and Eunice) and two of Lucy’s from a previous marriage (Edward and Duncan Meeks). Back in a more rural setting, Robert’s land again became a center of community activity, with parcels becoming the Mill Grove School and Primitive Baptist Church.

Near the end of his life in the 1920s, he subdivided the area closest to these institutions for his step-sons and other African American families, several of whose descendants still live along Bob’s Lane.