On a recent weekday afternoon, a half-dozen longtime members of one of Wilmington's longest-standing social clubs met up in a building at 1111 Castle St.
As another table of men played a spirited game of pinochle nearby, the assembled group talked about the storied past and uncertain future of the Wilmington Sportsmen's Club, which dates its origins to 1961.
Over the past six decades the club has become both a Wilmington institution and a fixture in the Black community, equal parts civic organization, event space and lively nightclub.
In recent years the club has seen historic changes on its longtime home of Castle Street, a historically Black corridor now seeing an influx of white residents and businesses . While some of the club's members are optimistic about its future, others cast an uneasy eye as they wait for events to unfold.
Origins
Floyd Palmer, the club's past president and unofficial historian, said he joined the Wilmington Sportsmen's Club in the early 1970s, about a decade after it was formed.
"Because I was the youngest person in the club, the next year they appointed me as president," Palmer said, a remark that got the men around him laughing.
Palmer has a quick wit, but he takes the history of the Wilmington Sportsmen's Club seriously.
He said the club first started meeting at a former fruit stand at 10th and Castle streets in 1961 before moving across the street to 1001 Castle St. in a building that's still there.
Most if not all of the 15 men who were original members of the club graduated from Williston High School, which during the time of segregation in Wilmington was a school for Black students.
Longtime club member Russell Jackson said he knew all of the original members, who are now deceased. The club's final surviving original member, Harry Johnson, died in 2023 at the age of 97.
"I was a 'partial member' when it was at the fruit stand," Jackson said. "Back then I was a competitor to them. We ran a club at 7th and Castle (called) The Blue Ribbon. It faded away, and after I retired I came down here.
"They were all genuine, down-to-earth people," Jackson said. "And that's why everyone probably wanted to be a member of the club, because they were nice guys."
The club came by its name honestly.
"They were playing softball. Slow-pitch softball," Palmer said, on the fields across from Williston, which is now a middle school. The original members played in a city softball league from 1961 to 1969, winning the league championship in 1967.
They also sponsored a little league baseball team during that time. When the men's days playing organized sports started coming to an end, the club began to lean into more of a civic mission, becoming an officially chartered private club with the state of North Carolina in 1969.
"The club's purpose (became) to promote high ideals and provide a social outlet for their members," Palmer said, with an added "purpose to assist the underprivileged and less fortunate."
In 1976, the club adopted its current motto: "Helping others is our goal."
Once a month, the club would attend one of its members' churches. They made donations to the NAACP, the Wilmington Boys Club and other local organizations. They sponsored an annual float in the N.C. Azalea Festival, and put together food baskets for needy families at Christmas.
The club sponsored sports teams, trips to baseball and football games, and trips to Atlantic City and to New York City, where until about a decade ago they held the annual Wilmingtonian Ball.
Heyday
By 1983, the club had 73 members. Palmer said they wanted to add members "to increase our visibility" and enhance their ability to do "projects and sponsorships in the community."
Over the years the Sportsmen's Club has always been centered on Castle Street, though not always in the same location. In 1983, however, "By the grace of God and the hard work of some dedicated membership, Wilmington Sportsmen's Club moved into our new facility at 1111 Castle St.," Palmer said, the same one they occupy today.
The club, which has always been member-owned and operated, purchased four lots and financed the construction of the new building partly through member donations but also by taking out a mortgage.
In response, they increased their membership to 100, got a liquor license and established a "duty roster" for members to serve as "bartenders, door workers, club security and custodians," Palmer said. "We didn't hire anybody. Members had to do this. All these services were done on a voluntary basis to meet the objective, which was to burn our mortgage."
The move was a success, and the mortgage was paid off in a mere three and half years.
The mid-'80s were a heyday for the Sportsmen's Club. In 1985, "When we had our first Black (Azalea Festival) queen," Palmer said, pointing to a picture on the wall of Phylicia Rashad (then Phylicia Ayers-Allen), "She stopped by to see us."
Many of Wilmington's most influential Black men were club members, including doctors and business owners, as well as former Wilmington City Councilman Luther Jordan, who would go on to become a North Carolina State Senator.
"A lot of them put their skills together to help us out with this place," Palmer said.
Longtime club member Kenneth Wise is from Philadelphia. He came to Wilmington in 1986 to work as a contract manager for GE's nuclear facility in Castle Hayne.
Wise said he attended a couple of functions at the club "and I was impressed, but I got more impressed when I read an article in the paper about the club. When I got through, I said to myself, 'These are the kind of people I want to be next to.' Progressive, they were doing things in the community."
In 1987, the club came up with the idea to host a college football game between two of North Carolina's historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs: Elizabeth City State University and Fayetteville State University.
"The main reason was because both schools had several alumni in the area," Palmer said.
Named the Port City Classic, the game was played every year through 1996, and featured other HBCUs including Livingstone College, Virginia State University and Bowie State University in Maryland.
"With the proceeds derived from those games in those 10 years, we provided over 54 scholarships to students going to university," Palmer said.
Also starting in the '80s, "We started renting the club out for weddings, receptions and various fundraising events," Palmer said. "We also booked a bands, comedy events and singers."
Current club president Clarence Verdun hails from Franklin, Louisiana, but starting in the early 2000s he would often sail into the Port of Wilmington for his job as a merchant seaman.
"I tried to figure out where to hang out," Verdun said. "I used to go downtown. It was OK."
Then a taxi driver told him about the Sportsmen's Club.
"Just so many people here, so much activity, so much closeness," Verdun said. "What they did for the neighborhood on Martin Luther King Day, during the parade they'd have cookouts in the back," all of it free for the community.
"That's something good to be a part of. That and the motto. Helping others is our goal."
Future of the club
As the club's members who'd been volunteering club began getting on in years, "We started outsourcing some of the jobs" Palmer said, hiring bartenders and security staff for the club, which continues to be a popular nightclub.
Over the past 20 years, the club has occasionally been the site of late-night altercations that led to shootings, something that has also happened at clubs in downtown Wilmington and in other parts of the Port City. Even though the incidents didn't involve club members, it wasn't exactly positive press.
In 2018, in partnership with Community Enrichment Initiative Inc./Wilmington Green, the Cape Fear Realtors and Williston Middle School, the club and late original member Harry Johnson helped start the Diversity Community Garden at 1101 Castle St., which also has a free "little library."
Then, in 2020, during the Covid pandemic, "It was a kind of a breakdown for us," Palmer said. "Covid kind of hit us pretty hard. When I joined the club, I was the youngest member. Now I'm one of the oldest."
The current membership roster sits at 58, Jackson said.
"What we gotta do now is recruit new members," Palmer said.
Verdun said "we're hoping that we can get the right kind of members so we can keep it going."
Recent renovations to the club's interior — new floors, kitchen, bathrooms, tables and a general spiffing up — look great, and are designed to build the club's membership. There's a fenced-in back patio for outdoor gatherings, and the club still hosts various private events, like when Wilmington radio personality Brandon "Bigg B" Hickman hosted a Christmas party as "Soul Santa" last year. The club is open seven days a week, on busy nights until 2 a.m.
Still, all of the recent changes on Castle Street, including the dozens of new housing units right across the street, is a cause of worry to some of the club's members.
"This is a concern of ours about this apartment building going up," Palmer said. "I don't know what's gonna happen there."
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Since they stay open late, "If we have music loud, or people leaving the club, (residents) may start complaining. This used to be a business district," Palmer said, but that part of Castle Street has essentially been changed into a mix of business and residential.
"I think it's gonna help us," Jackson said. "I think we're going to get some business from across the street. They probably gonna say, 'Why go downtown to drink when I can drink across the street and walk home.'"
Of course, the future is always unknown until it happens. But if the past is any indication, the Wilmington Sportsmen's Club will continue to be part of and serve its community.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Active since 1961, one of Wilmington's most storied social clubs faces uncertain future
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