In 1938 America was a racially segregated society. As a result, RHA planned two initial public housing communities: one for whites (Halifax Court) and one for African-Americans (Chavis Heights). RHA selected the site for Chavis Heights due to the substandard units in the area, its nearness to a park, access to the recreation center, and proximity to the new Crosby-Garfield School and downtown. In the July 19, 1940 edition of the News and Observer, Chavis Heights was described as “Almost identical in construction with Halifax Court…it is the darling of the Housing Authority because of its peculiar advantages of location which will make it one of the South’s finest.”

The park and the public housing community were named after John Chavis (1760-1838), an African-American educator. Chavis fought in the Revolutionary War and gained his freedom for his service. He was educated at Washington Academy which later became Princeton University, and established a school for children of both races near where Chavis Park is located today. For a quarterly fee, he taught whites during the day and African-Americans in the evenings. Chavis taught a number of prominent persons including a future governor and a senator. Exactly 100 years after his death, Chavis Heights was named in his honor.

The area that now includes Chavis Heights was an area of Raleigh initially occupied by freedmen following the emancipation of slaves. According to Culture Town written by Linda Simmons-Henry, Edward A. Johnson and Milford Gurley were two of the major developers of property in south Raleigh around the turn of the century. They owned rows of one-story, timber-frame Triple A and shotgun houses that housed scores of working class African-American families in the neighborhoods of the Third and Fourth Wards. To this day, a few of these historic homes remain in the area of Chavis Heights.