Lane Street Project: Basket Creek Cemetery.

Though I will always be of Wilson, I have lived in Atlanta for most of my adult life. It is very much “home” for me, too, and is a bottomless well of African-American culture and history that often informs the way I process research and works related to Black Wide-Awake and Lane Street Project.

I’ve begun visiting metro Atlanta’s historic African-American burial grounds. How have they weathered exploding population growth, shifting demographics, outmigration, land loss, and other pressures? The fifth in a series — Basket Creek Baptist Church Cemetery, Douglas County.

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Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2009, Basket Creek Cemetery is singular in all of Georgia as the only documented burial ground with grave mounding, a practice with roots in West Africa. Per Wikipedia, the cemetery is classified as Southern Folk-style, with mounded graves, scraped ground, a hilltop location, east-to-west grave orientation, grave markers and decorations made with local materials (not commercially sold), certain types of vegetation, grave shelters, family plots, wife-to-the-left burials, and evidence of a devotion to God and/or family in the form of memorials.

Basket Creek Cemetery is astonishing in the very best sense of the word. Here are excerpts from the National Register nomination form:

Thomas J. Beadles Died Mar. 3, 1903 Aged 63 Yrs.

Thomas S. Endsley D. This Life March 17 1903

John T. Colclough Oct. 3, 1837 Oct. 7, 1914

“Simpson” Mr. William H. Endsley 5.10 1851 7.17 1923 (an Eldren Bailey headstone made for Simpson Funeral Home well after Endsley’s death) 

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, April 2026.

Corporal Johnnie Swinney, sent overseas.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 602 Viola Street, Samuel Sweny, 53, painter, and children Neoma, 17, Laney, 15, Easter, 13, Gracy, 12, John H., 10, and George P., 7.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 602 Viola Street, Samuel Swinney, 76, painter, daughters Ester, 22, a tobacco stemmer, and Gracie, 22, superintendent at NYA project, and sons Johnnie R., 18, “in CCC camp,” and George, 17.

In 1942, Johnnie Richard Swinney registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County.

In the 1950 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 602 Viola Street, Sidney Thompson, 37, cook; wife Lanie, 34, cook; son Alton, 11; and brothers-in-law George, 26, grocery store manager and Johnnie Swinney, 25, painter. 

Johnnie R. Swinney died 30 September 1986 in Wilson.

Image courtesy of Veterans of World War II Wilson County, spiral-bound volume, Wilson County Public Library.

James Baker, as imagined.

I am ambivalent about using artificial intelligence to restore photographs. Or, more specifically, I’m concerned about manipulated photographs supplanting original images and further blurring the line between reality and misinformation. However, the allure of AI-enhanced images is strong, as I often contend with blurry, poorly lit photographs in unnatural sepia or black-and-white tones. Photographs whose condition sometimes exacerbates the distance between us and our ancestors.

I have been experimenting with ChatGPT lately, feeding it queries and images to be restored and colorized. The results are somewhat haphazard, with many images weird and off-putting. Other times, the images are breathtakingly sharp and … alive. Black Wide-Awake exists to resurrect forgotten lives, and I believe these images are valuable to help us connect with the men and women we read about in these posts. From time to time, I’ll share the better ones here, clearly marked as AI-generated. Let me know what you think about them.

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James Baker (1879-1940), farmer.

Received of Daniel Vick.

From the Samuel H. Vick family’s archives, two receipts for payments made by patriarch Daniel Vick. The first reflects taxes he paid for 1883 “Graded School — Colored” in the amount of $5.52.

The second is a receipt for payment of $12.14 to Alpheus P. Branch, merchant, banker, and founder of Branch Banking & Trust (now Truist.)

Thank you for sharing, Vicki M. Cowan!

The 108th anniversary of the school boycott.

Today marks the 108th anniversary of the resignation of 11 African-American teachers in Wilson, North Carolina, in rebuke of their “high-handed” black principal and the white school superintendent who slapped one of them. In their wake, black parents pulled their children out of the public school en masse and established a private alternative in a building owned by a prominent black businessman.  Financed with 25¢-a-week tuition payments and elaborate student musical performances, the Independent School operated for nearly ten years. The school boycott, sparked by African-American women standing at the very intersection of perceived powerless in the Jim Crow South, was an astonishing act of prolonged resistance that unified Wilson’s black toilers and strivers.

The only known photograph of the Wilson Normal Collegiate & Industrial Institute. 

The school boycott is largely forgotten in Wilson, and its heroes go unsung. In their honor, today, and every April 9 henceforth, I publish links to Black Wide-Awake posts chronicling the walk-out and its aftermath. Please re-read and share and speak the names of Mary C. Euell and the revolutionary teachers of the Colored Graded School.

we-tender-our-resignation-and-east-wilson-followed

the-heroic-teachers-of-principal-reids-school

The teachers.

a-continuation-of-the-bad-feelings

what-happened-when-white-perverts-threatened-to-slap-colored-school-teachers

604-606-east-vance-street

mary-euell-and-dr-du-bois

minutes-of-the-school-board

attack-on-prof-j-d-reid

lucas-delivers-retribution

lynching-going-on-and-there-are-men-trying-to-stand-in-with-the-white-folks

photos-of-the-colored-graded-and-independent-schools

new-school-open

the-program

a-big-occasion-in-the-history-of-the-race-in-this-city

womens-history-month-celebrating-the-teachers-of-the-wilson-normal-industrial-school

the-roots-of-mary-c-euell

respectful-petition-seeks-reids-removal

lucas-testifies-that-he-accomplished-his-purpose

there-has-been-an-astonishing-occurrence-in-wilson

no-armistice-in-sight

the-independent-school-thrives

the-incorporation-of-the-w-n-c-i-institute

normal-school-teachers

And here, my Zoom lecture, “Wilson Normal and Industrial Institute: A Community Response to Injustice,” delivered in February 2022.

B.W.A. Historical Marker Series, no. 37: Holden School.

In this series, which will post on occasional Wednesdays, I populate the landscape of Wilson County with imaginary “historical markers” commemorating people, places, and events significant to African-American history or culture.

We been here.

HOLDEN SCHOOL

Originally one-room school for white students; converted to Black school circa 1921. Located near Mill Branch west of Holdens Crossroads. Building replaced with Rosenwald funds in early 1920s. Closed in 1951 with consolidation of rural schools. Demolished.

We know relatively little about Holden School, but for more, see here and here and here.

Darden debaters go to state finals at A&T.

Wilson Daily Times, 28 March 1939.

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