This amazing document is the program for the sixth commencement exercises of the Wilson Colored Graded School, which took place May 21-23, 1889. The ceremonies took place in Odd Fellows Hall — the apparent predecessor to the three-story brick Odd Fellows Building Samuel H. Vick built in 1894. (Was it on East Nash Street, too?)

Teachers Susie Harrison and Lucy Robinson led exercises for the first, second, and third grade students; Braswell R. Winstead for the fourth and fifth graders; and Principal S.H. Vick, the sixth and seventh graders. J.P. Murphey, W.H. Vick, J.E. Hocutt, R.D. Dew, and J.H. Edwards served as ushers. 

The main feature was the sixth and grade exercises. On May 23, Presbyterian minister H.H. Boone of Tarboro delivered the Annual Oration between performances of “Come Again With Singing” and “Soldier’s Chorus.” Sixth grade students Ella Johnson, J.E. Hocutt, Sarah Barnes, Turner Williamson, Howard Edwards, Sarah L. Rountree, Amanda Battle, Ida Rountree, and Augustus S. Clark declaimed, sang, or orated, as did seventh graders J.P. Murphrey, Celia Hill, Adelia Battle, Sarah T. Rountree, Charlotte Jordan, W.H. Vick, Annie M. Washington, and W.H. Clark.