On 5 December 1936, when the Wilson Daily Times reported preparations for the Wilson Welfare Association’s Christmas Opportunity list, it noted: “The Christmas opportunity list will carry the names of very few colored cases, just those that are blind; as the colored families are handled by a group from the Colored Social Service Bureau. The Wilson Welfare Association is the only organized relief society that handles both white and colored cases in the city and with the closing of the factories the load is increasing daily.”

Two Black families met the Welfare Association’s criteria. Unfortunately for the regular poor, the Colored Social Service Bureau’s cases did not benefit from advertisement in the local newspaper.

Wilson Daily Times, 12 December 1936.