Month: July 2023

In honor and memory of Della Mae Hooks.

Della Mae Gary Hooks (1961-2023). Rest in power.

Today we honor the memory of Della Hooks, beloved wife and helpmeet of our stalwart warrior, Castonoble Hooks. Della was the force behind Lane Street Project’s Senior Force, and her sudden loss leaves us bereft. Her kindness, her quiet strength, her boundless generosity were gifts she shared with all she encountered. When my own family was hurting, she spoke to us in her love language by sending dish after dish of barbecued ribs, chicken salad, cabbage, and macaroni and cheese, and we were grateful.

Cass, we honor the beautiful life and spirit of your wife Della. We lift you up in this dark hour. Your bond with Della was profoundly blessed, and your poetic tributes to her on even ordinary days showed us love in action. May your grief come gently. We love you.

Photo courtesy of Chris Facey.

Lane Street Project: “This is how we honor our dead?”

Local journalism, folks, is vital. Wilson Times continues its close coverage of Vick Cemetery with a detailed report of last week’s council meeting, focusing on the comments made by the descendant community, Lane Street Project, and our allies. Today’s paper also includes an editorial calling for the City to heed the call of citizens and work closely with them before moving forward. The piece presents a more optimistic take on the situation than my own, but adds a welcome, and weighty, voice to this conversation.

We demand a say in the future of Vick Cemetery.

Which council member will insist that the City engage with primary stakeholders before considering the City Manager’s recommendations?

Which council member will move to establish an advisory council?

Which council member will demand a full survey map?

Who will demand an independent investigation into the disappearance of Vick’s headstones?

What passed for fun in the Tobacco Festival parade.

The City of Wilson commenced its annual Tobacco Festival parades in 1936. These appalling images were shot in July 1939 as the parade advanced up Nash Street. This is what passed for fun in Wilson as weeds shot toward the sky in Vick Cemetery.

A giant mammy.

The Junior King and Queen in a palanquin carried by shirtless black men. This mini-float, sponsored by the Lions Club, took a second-place prize.

Another Lions Club’s parade entry. White boys dressed as big game hunters lead bare-chested, barefooted black boys whose features have been exaggerated with white paint. They are dressed as “natives” and wear clown hats. (The top photo was taken after the parade at the Charles L. Coon High School athletic field. The bottom was shot as the boys approached Tarboro Street.) As described in the 18 July 1939 edition of the Wilson Daily Times, “the Frank Buck motif got in the parade again with an alligator in a cage and ‘Bring ’em back alive‘ painted on it.'”

My thanks to J. Robert Boykin III for sharing these photos, which were likely taken for the Wilson Chamber of Commerce.

An elopement from Robeson County.

Wilmington Morning Star, 2 September 1902.

In 1902, Charlotte Sanderson, a white married Cumberland County mother, ran away with C.A.P. Overby, an African-American man (with a reddish-brown, or “ginger cake,” complexion). With several of Sanderson’s children in tow, the couple made it as far as Kenly, where Overby apparently realized the enormity — and impossibility — of their actions and abandoned the family. Sanderson rode the train one town further, into Wilson County, where she disembarked and found work for herself and children. After writing to a friend to ship her goods to Lucama, Sanderson was arrested and returned to Fayetteville to face charges of … what?

The Daily Times noted that Sanderson was “fairly good looking, but illiterate.” The Lenoir, N.C., Weekly News described Sanderson as “very ignorant and debased,” as any white woman who engaged in an intimate relationship with a Black man would be, per the social restrictions of the time. Her husband, on the other hand, was “industrious” and “respectable.” The Sandersons did not divorce, however, or at least not immediately, as they are found together in the 1910 census.

I have not been able to determine the fate of Overby.

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In the 1900 census of Lumberton township, Robeson County, North Carolina: Alexander Sanderson, 36; wife Charlotte, 30; and children William C., 11, Nannie Lee, 9, Alice C., 7, Maggie, 5, and Alexander, 2.

In the 1910 census of Lumberton township, Robeson County: farmer Sandy Sanderson, 46; wife Charlotte, 40; and children Alice C., 17, Maggie B., 15, Sandy, 12, Clarence, 9, and William C., 21.

The arrival of the Catholic trailer chapel.

Wilson Daily Times, 10 July 1941.

Wilson Daily Times, 12 July 1941.

The first Catholic services for African-Americans in Wilson were held at Reid Street Community Center in 1941, with construction of a new church — to be known as Saint Alphonsus — soon to get underway.

Lane Street Project: Grant Goings speaks on Vick Cemetery at the July 20 council meeting.

A huge thank you to all who showed up for Vick Cemetery at Thursday night’s council meeting. Several people spoke during public comment, an important signifier of the depth of commitment to justice for this historic burial ground.

That said: though I was not surprised, I could not suppress my disappointment, then anger, at City Manager Grant Goings’ remarks. I’m still processing, but want to share this clip and my first thoughts.

This six-minute video begins as Goings responds to Councilmember Gillettia Morgan‘s question about the City’s plans for Vick.

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Below, an excerpt from Wilson County’s GIS website. The parcels around Vick are numbered, and their owners are as set forth on county tax records. The City does not own property across the street from Vick. Rather, down toward the bend in BLNF Street, at (6), it and the Cemetery Commission own an electrical substation and a parcel slated for the expansion of Rest Haven Cemetery. Given the distance from Vick, the narrowness of the street, and the lack of sidewalks, it is difficult to imagine how a new parking lot on city-owned land, however “nice,” is a viable option.

(1) Vick Cemetery [Cemetery Trustees of the City of Wilson]; (2) Odd Fellows Cemetery [Odd Fellows Society]; (3) Rountree Cemetery [Rountree Missionary Baptist Church]; (4) Wilson Farm Properties LLC; (5) Rev. J. Gordon Wright Trust; (6) Wilson Cemetery Commission; (7) Wilson Farm Properties LLC. 

Extra special thanks to Jen Kehrer for sharing this video clip.

Lane Street Project: the numbers.

The first clue to the density of graves in Vick Cemetery came in response to my September 2019 request for public records related to the Lane Street cemeteries. A map, prepared by F.T. Green and Associates [now Green Engineering], showed the location of every grave observed by contractors clearing the cemetery in 1995. The resolution of the copy the City sent me is awful, but close inspection revealed that what seemed to be little marks were actually numbers. Each grave was numbered as it surveyed, but the city cannot locate its copy of the key to these numbers.

I recently had the chance to examine a cleaner print of this document, and it broke my heart all over again. The image below is a close-up of just a section of the map. I had counted 1491 of the little marks; I was off by about 35. But the contractor was off by more than 2700. We now know there are 4,224+ graves in Vick. 

 

The last will and testament of Bushrod Dew.

Bushrod “Bush” Dew executed an unusually detailed will two months before he died in April 1920.

First, he requested a decent burial with “suitable headstones,” which we have seen here.

He then bequeathed his wife Susan Melton Dew a life estate in the house in which they lived, which was situated on one-eighth acre of land. That land was part of a one-acre tract Dew bought from Donaldson [Dollison?] Powell. After Susan Dew’s death, the house and small lot were to pass to their son Van Dew.

Susan Dew was also to receive all household and kitchen furniture. Daughters Nannie Dew, Effie Dew Parker, and Lossie Dew Best received one-quarter acre each from the one acre purchased from Powell.

Bush Dew’s son Van and three daughters were to divide equally 13 acres adjoining the property of Walter Woodard, Wiley Rountree, and others, and Van Dew was to receive the remaining one-eighth acre of the one-acre parcel above.

However, “on account of the unfaithfulness of my son Ed Dew to his parents and on account of his neglect to take advantage of the opportunity of an education which I have tried to give him,” Ed Dew was to receive twenty-five dollars and nothing more.  All other property, other than money, was to be divided among Bush Dew’s daughters.

Any remaining money was to be held in trust for five years, then equally divided among Dew’s daughters and son Van.

For more about Bushrod “Bush” Dew, see here and here and here.

Will of Bush Dew (1920), North Carolina Wills and Probate Records 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.

5000.

Black Wide-Awake hit 5,000 posts today, y’all. (This is number 5,002.) Who would ever have thought there’d be so much we could learn about the African-American families and history of a single, small, eastern North Carolina county?

Thank you all for the comments, questions, suggestions, corrections, and encouragement. On to the next 5,000! (May one attest to victory at Vick Cemetery!)