Wilson Daily Times, 15 January 1924.

Wilson Colored High School, later christened Charles H. Darden High School, was the first school in Wilson County — and the only, for another 15 years — offering high school instruction to African-American students. The building, which expanded in the 1940s and ’50s, stood on Carroll Street, facing the dead-end of Green, until the 1990s. The site is now occupied by Samuel H. Vick Elementary School. For more on Principal Irvin Saint Clair, see here. (Note that, per this article, none of Wilson’s African-American contractors or craftsmen were afforded the opportunity to help build the school.)

Photograph courtesy of Charles L. Coon, “Public Schools of Wilson County,” Wilson County Board of Education (1924).

Plan of Wilson Colored High School, 1930 Sanborn insurance map. The classroom wings were recent additions to the building.