No. 16440

Certificate of Incorporation of the

Wilson Normal, Collegiate & Industrial Institute, Inc.

North Carolina, Wilson County }

Articles of agreement entered into for the purpose of forming a corporation without capital stock under the general laws of the State of North Carolina.

1. The name of the corporation shall be The Wilson Normal, Collegiate & Industrial Institute, Inc.

2. The location of its principal office shall be in Wilson County, post office address Wilson, North Carolina, and the annual meeting shall be held there.

3. The object of the corporation shall be to run a school for the purpose of giving instruction to the negro youth, beginning with the kindergarten, primary, intermediate, academic, normal, collegiate, and industrial work.

4. The corporation shall have the power to establish and maintain kindergarten, primary, intermediate, normal, academic, collegiate and industrial departments, and for the purpose of establishing and maintaining the same and for the general purposes of the corporation, may purchase, lease, hold and convey in its corporate name all kinds of property, real, personal, mixed or all of them as may be directed. And the Corporation shall have no capital stock.

5. The corporation shall have power to award diplomas and give certificates from the various departments when the courses have been covered satisfactory to the management of the department in which the course is taken or covered.

6. The corporation may solicit contributions, borrow money, and contract debts, secure the same by mortgage, bond or otherwise, and may convey any or all its property.

7. It shall have the power to adopt a corporate seal and change the same at will, and adopt by laws and regulations, and it may do any act as authorized by the general law of corporations.

8. The duration of the corporation shall be 99 years.

9. The principal officers of the corporation shall be a principal, assistant principal, educational secretary, and directors of departments, secretary and treasurer and board of directors. The said officers so elected by the board of trustees named in these articles or their successors in accordance with the by-laws to be adopted by the board of trustees.

10. The names of the incorporators and their respective residences are as follows:

S.H. Vick, L.A. Moore, Wm. Phillips, W.A. Mitchener, C.L. Darden, M.H. Wilson, W.S. Hines, Wm. Hines, D.C. Yancey, N.J. Tate, E.L. Reid, and John W. Rogers, all of Wilson, North Carolina.

11. The above named incorporators shall constitute the first board of trustees. And they shall remain in office until their successors are elected. The trustees shall elect one third of its members for a term of two years; one third for a term of four years, and one third for a term of six years. The annual meeting shall be on the second Tuesday in July.

12. The chairman of the trustee board, the treasurer, the principal and assistant principal, and educational secretary shall constitute an executive committee who shall be responsible for the active running of the school.

13. The private property of the members of this corporation shall be exempt from the debts of the corporation.

14. The corporation shall have the power to collect and disburse the funds for the purpose of the corporation under such rules and regulations as it may seem necessary to adopt.

15. The trustees shall have power to employ such teachers as they deem necessary; fix the tuition of pupils; give free tuition if they see proper; and to make contract with local school committee or any other person or corporation for the teaching of any number of pupils.

16. After the filing of these articles the board of trustees shall meet upon the call of the members and adopt for their regular government a set of by-laws and elect officers in accordance with same.

In witness whereof, we the undersigned subscribers for the purpose hereinbefore stated have hereunto set our hands and seals, this 30th day of September, A.D. 1918.

S.H. Vick; D.C. Yancey; Wm. Hines; Dr. W.A. Mitchener; N.J. Tate; L.A. Moore; E.L. Reid, V.S.; Walter S. Hines, C.L. Darden; John W. Rogers; M.H. Wilson; Wm.H. Phillips

Witness as to all 12. Robert N. Perry

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The takeaways:

• These folk were not playing. They incorporated the new independent school.
• The incorporators were the equivalent of Wilson’s Talented Tenth — businessmen, a pharmacist, a doctor, a dentist, a veterinarian — and their bold rebuke of Charles Coon carried the tacit reproval of one of their own, principal J.D. Reid. (Who was, in fact, veterinarian Elijah L. Reid’s brother.)
• The school was not just a normal and industrial school. It also, as its official name indicates, offered a collegiate track.
• The school boycott was no temporary flex. Clearly, the idea was not to return to the public school system.