Black History Month Throwback: honoring acts of resistance, no. 1.

Wilson’s Art Deco bus station stood from 1938 to the mid-1990s.

In 1943, a dozen years before Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks’ celebrated acts of resistance, at least four young African-American men and women refused to move to the back of Wilson buses. Read again of their direct challenges to Jim Crow  and discrimination and lift up their memory.

The obituary of Elder Cordie Lucas.

Wilson Daily Times, 30 November 1972.

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In the 1900 census of Oldfields township, Wilson County: Ruffin Woodard, 20, and Corda P. Lucas, 17, servants and farm laborers in the household of Bennett Bullock, 37, farmer.

In the 1910 census of Oldfields township, Wilson County: Esic C. Watson, 34; wife Mary, 32; children Pienetta, 14, Eureka, 12, Ila, 10, Ola, 8, and Edgar, 6; and hired man/farm laborer Cordie Lucas, 26.

On 19 March 1913, Cordie Locus, 29, of Nash County, son of John P. Locus and Millie Locus, married Jane Ellen Darden, 20, of Oldfields township, daughter of Peter Darden and Lucy Darden, in Oldfields township. Original Free Will Baptist minister B.H. Boykin performed the ceremony.

In 1918, Cordie Peter Lucas registered for the World War I draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 15 December 1883; lived at R.F.D. #1, Sims; worked as a tenant farmer for Wiley Farmer; and his nearest relative was Janie Lucas.

In the 1920 census of Oldfields township, Wilson County: farmer Cordie P. Locus, 36; wife Janie E., 25; and children Millie J., 5, Willie C., 4, Walter J., 2, and Mary L., 3 months.

In the 1930 census of Oldfields township, Wilson County: farmer Cordy P. Locus, 46; wife Jane E., 35; and children Millie, 15, Willie C., 14, Walter J., 12, Mary L., 10, John R., 9, David, 7, Benjamin, 5, Ruth, 4, and Ruby L., 1.

In the 1940 census of Beulah township, Johnston County NC: farmer Cordie P. Lucas, 56, widower, and children Mary L., 20, John R., 18, David, 17, Benjamin, 15, Ruth, 13, Ruby L., 11, Beulah M. and Eula P., 8, Janie, 5, and Nannie, 4.

In the 1950 census of Beulah township, Johnston County NC: farmer Cordie P. Lucas, 65,; [children] Ruth, 23, Beulah M. and Eula P., 18, Jannie, 15, Nanny R., 14, Willie C., 34, Hazel, 23; and [grandchildren] Barbara A., 4, and Linda Locus, 1, and James L. Simms, 5.

Cordie P. Lucas died 26 November 1972 in New Jersey.

Drs. Barnes and Yancy lead battle for equal education.

Pittsburgh Courier, 4 February 1950.

The suit Dr. Boisey O. Barnes and Dr. Darcey C. Yancey filed eventually led to the construction of a new elementary school in East Wilson. Barnes died in 1956, and the school was named in his honor.

Swift bound to a labor agreement.

According to the 1880 census of Bull Doze township, Greene County, Dennis Swift was born in Maryland. He did not remain in Wilson County long, as he appears in no other county records. Swift married in Greene County in 1877 and gave his age as 24, which would have made him about 14 when he entered into this labor agreement with John H. Winstead of Joyners township, Wilson County.

Lane Street Project: cars dash through the snow at Vick.

There was a time when spinning doughnuts over the graves in Vick Cemetery was commonplace. As the message spread that this is sacred space, and as the Cemetery Commission’s crews began to care for the grounds, this kind of desecration had become rare.

Unfortunately, someone has again disrespected our cemetery by driving vehicles wildly through the snow that fell over the weekend. I deeply grateful to Heather Goff and her crew, who discovered the tire marks. Concerned about damage, they plan to set up cones to block access to the cemetery’s surface until the snow melts.

“Dying Is But Going Home”: Wilson County’s African-American Cemeteries, February 25.

Each year, I cross my fingers that Wilson County Public Library will extend another invitation to me to speak during Black History Month. Over the past decade, I’ve talked about Dr. Joseph H. Ward, Wilson County’s enslaved people and free people of color, the Lane Street cemeteries, Rosenwald schools, African-American churches, Samuel H. Vick, Mary C. Euell and the Colored School boycott, the 500 block of East Nash Street, and researching African-American genealogy.

The call came again this year, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my research with the people for whom it most resonates. This February, I’ll be talking about historic black cemeteries throughout Wilson County. I surely hope you’ll join me.

Samuel H. Vick overcame odds.

Wilson Daily Times, 24 February 2003.

This Black History Month piece offers a few nuggets for further research on Samuel H. Vick:

  • “His father … had three brothers, all having different last names depending on the white families to whom they belonged.” [Who were Daniel Vick’s brothers?]
  • newspaper articles reported that, on Vick’s first day as postmaster, “[g]un-toting black citizens lined the streets to serve as bodyguards because he had received so many threats” [Wowww.]
  • “The Independent School continued to operate until 1923 when the local school system opened the Wilson Colored High School ….” [Other sources estimated a ten-year run, but this makes sense.]