1910s

Nellie Woodard visits her late husband’s parents in Wilson.

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 25 August 1917.

Nellie V. Woodard’s late husband was William H. Woodard, son of Jack and Fannie Simms Woodard, a cleaning and pressing club owner who had died 26 February 1917. He was about 35 years old.

A few weeks later, Nellie Woodard placed a notice thanking friends for their kindnesses during her husband’s illness and her bereavement.

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 17 March 1917.

——

In the 1880 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: farmer Jack Woodard, 35; wife Fannie, 32; and children John, 12, Julia, 7, Cynthia, 6, Albert, 5, and Aaron, 2.

In the 1900 census of Black Creek township: farmer Jackson Woodard, 56, wife Fannie, 53, children Daisy, 30, Aaron, 18, Harry, 19, Augustus, 17, Steven, 16, Mary, 11, and Harriet, 8, and grandchildren Eddie, 5, Bessie, 3, and Frank, 6 months.

Virginian Pilot (Norfolk, Va.), 13 October 1910. 

Virginian Pilot (Norfolk, Va.), 2 November 1910. 

Norfolk (Va.) City Directory (1918).

Gala day for County School Commencement!

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 21 April 1917.

Can you imagine? Each spring, hundreds and hundreds of county school children gathered at the Colored Graded School to launch a parade through the streets of downtown Wilson, led by a brass marching band. (The article says 2000 children marched in 1917. There were only about 20 county schools, none larger than three rooms. That is a thirst for knowledge.) The children’s manual arts exhibits were displayed on the school grounds and in the auditorium an array of dignitaries (including “three white ladies from New York” and Dr. Frank S. Hargrave) graced the stage. Speaker after speaker delivered messages in the Booker T. Washington mode — work hard, be patriotic, know your place. J.D. Reid, principal of the Graded School and supervisor of the black county schools, was recognized for having spearheaded a prodigious fundraising drive, money that likely represented the community’s monetary contribution to the four Rosenwald Schools built in Wilson County in 1917 and ’18 — Williamson, Rocky Branch, Kirby’s, and Lucama. (Just shy of a year later, Reid and Charles L. Coon were embroiled in the disgraceful events that led to a boycott of the Graded School, but let’s stay present….)

——

  • Rev. Perry — Rev. Robert N. Perry, pastor of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church
  • Mr. Vick — Samuel H. Vick, former Graded School principal and extraordinary businessman and political leader

The 108th anniversary of the school boycott.

Today marks the 108th anniversary of the resignation of 11 African-American teachers in Wilson, North Carolina, in rebuke of their “high-handed” black principal and the white school superintendent who slapped one of them. In their wake, black parents pulled their children out of the public school en masse and established a private alternative in a building owned by a prominent black businessman.  Financed with 25¢-a-week tuition payments and elaborate student musical performances, the Independent School operated for nearly ten years. The school boycott, sparked by African-American women standing at the very intersection of perceived powerless in the Jim Crow South, was an astonishing act of prolonged resistance that unified Wilson’s black toilers and strivers.

The only known photograph of the Wilson Normal Collegiate & Industrial Institute. 

The school boycott is largely forgotten in Wilson, and its heroes go unsung. In their honor, today, and every April 9 henceforth, I publish links to Black Wide-Awake posts chronicling the walk-out and its aftermath. Please re-read and share and speak the names of Mary C. Euell and the revolutionary teachers of the Colored Graded School.

we-tender-our-resignation-and-east-wilson-followed

the-heroic-teachers-of-principal-reids-school

The teachers.

a-continuation-of-the-bad-feelings

what-happened-when-white-perverts-threatened-to-slap-colored-school-teachers

604-606-east-vance-street

mary-euell-and-dr-du-bois

minutes-of-the-school-board

attack-on-prof-j-d-reid

lucas-delivers-retribution

lynching-going-on-and-there-are-men-trying-to-stand-in-with-the-white-folks

photos-of-the-colored-graded-and-independent-schools

new-school-open

the-program

a-big-occasion-in-the-history-of-the-race-in-this-city

womens-history-month-celebrating-the-teachers-of-the-wilson-normal-industrial-school

the-roots-of-mary-c-euell

respectful-petition-seeks-reids-removal

lucas-testifies-that-he-accomplished-his-purpose

there-has-been-an-astonishing-occurrence-in-wilson

no-armistice-in-sight

the-independent-school-thrives

the-incorporation-of-the-w-n-c-i-institute

normal-school-teachers

And here, my Zoom lecture, “Wilson Normal and Industrial Institute: A Community Response to Injustice,” delivered in February 2022.

An account of the estate of John H. Aiken, livery operator.

John H. Aiken died 20 July 1914 in Wilson. He operated a livery stable at 125 South Goldsboro Street. Livery stables were the essential equivalent of parking lots and car rental offices, offering boarding, feeding, and care of privately owned horses and rental of horses, carriages, and buggies. Aiken’s wife Georgia Crockett Aiken served as administrator of his estate before resigning on 27 August 1914 and joining Aiken’s heirs — children Quince Aiken, William Aiken, Samuel Aiken, Nannie Eperson, John McDaniel, Gollie Aiken, Levi Aiken, Lizzie Aiken, and Alice Aiken — to request the appointment of W.R. Bryan.

Georgia Aiken’s inventory and final account, filed 29 August 1914, offers a detailed look at a successful black-owned business in pre-World War I Wilson. The inventory reveals a large, though heavily mortgaged, stock in trade — 13 horses, 14 buggies, 5 closed carriages, 2 single surries, and 4 wagons of various types. (There’s also a fifty-dollar debt to Aiken owed by veterinarian Elijah L. Reid.)

Receipts show that Aiken did a healthy business renting out his conveyances. In the last 15 days of July, Georgia Aiken collected almost $190.00 “for teams and buggies,” averaging $12.65 a day [$413.38 in today’s dollars].

Georgia Aiken also took in payments from Briggs Hotel and Wilson Hardware Company, both white-owned businesses, for boarding the companies’ horses.

Most of Aiken’s disbursements were wage payments to laborers William Best, Henry Best, Edward Mooring, William Selby, George Lane, and Dave McPhail. J.Y. Buchanan received four payments for shoeing horses; Hackney Brothers and C. Mack Wells were paid for hack repairs; A.J. Ford was paid for repairing a harness; and Thomas & Barnes for an unspecified repair.

Aiken paid bills from Carolina Telephone Company, Barnes-Graves Grocery Company, and J. & D. Oettinger. She paid two feed bills from C. Woodard Company and made seven payments to Quinn-McGowan Furniture Company, likely for the costs of her husband’s funeral. She also paid stable rent to S.M. Richardson and unspecified rent to S.H. Vick, as well as miscellaneous fees related to probate. Interestingly, Georgia Aiken paid $79.39 — quite a large sum — to T.S. Beatty of the Knights of Gideon lodge. What was this for?

Wilson [County, North Carolina] Property Settlement Records 1905-1923, http://www.familysearch.org.

Nineteenth-century colored school districts.

We know little about 19th-century African American schools in Wilson County. There were at least 19 and probably many more, but to date we can only firmly identify five. These quasi-public schools predated Rosenwald schools by decades, but at least a few, like Rocky Branch, Howard, and Stantonsburg, survived to be upgraded with Rosenwald funds.

Here’s a running list of the schools I’ve identified.

#1 Unnamed school, Stantonsburg township, per deed reference, Stantonsburg and Moyton Road.

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12 Rocky Branch school, Springhill township, per an 1896 deed reference to “the lot belonging to district No 12 of the colored free school … on the Buck horn and Kenly Road” adjacent to the “colored Christian church lot …”

#13

#14 Unknown school, Black Creek township, per reference in an 1881 news brief.

Wilson Advance, 11 February 1881.

#15

#16

#17 Howard School, Taylors township, per deed.

#18

#19 Unknown school, Toisnot township east of Elm City, per a 1898 deed reference: “Parcel of land known as Colored School lot District no 19. Situated on the East Side of the Public road leading from Elm City to the old Tarboro and Raleigh road, adjoining the lands of [Redmond Winstead] containing one acre or less.”

Deed Book 50, page 283, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

The McGrews call at the Wabash Avenue Y.

In an article about happenings at Chicago’s Wabash Avenue Y.M.C.A.:

Chicago Defender, 7 December 1912. 

——

I have found only one other reference to James H. and Hattie I. McGrew in Wilson, which mentioned that James McGrew had come to work in Wilson for Lincoln Benefit Society in the fall of 1912. They didn’t stay long.

In 1910, the couple appears in the census of Brunswick County, Virginia. In 1915, J.H. McGrew was counted in the 1915 state census of Bluff Creek, Iowa. In 1920, the McGrews are listed in Richmond, Virginia, where James worked as state secretary of the Y.M.C.A. By the mid-1930s, he was executive secretary of Atlanta’s famed Butler Street Y.M.C.A.

Wabash Avenue Y.M.C.A., Chicago, Illinois.

World War I service cards, no. 1.
  • Obert Bullock

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Lee Street, Frank Bullock, 65; wife Lizzie, 60; and children Ernest, 25, Hady, 23, Petrony, 26, and Obert, 16.

On 23 December 1919, Cordy Tillery applied for a marriage license for Obert Bullock, 24, son of Frank and Lizzie Bullock, and Lorena Ellis, 21. The license was never used and was cancelled in June 1920.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 410 Pine, Lizzie Bullock, 65, widow, cook for McLean; daughter Gertruge, 25, cook, and son Obert, 24, cafe cook.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 409 Pine, widow Lizzie Bullock, 70, practical nurse; children Ernest, 43, house painter, Obert, 33, hotel cook, and Gertrude, 35, private home laundress; and lodgers Charlie Moye, 29, truck farmer, and Edward Williams, 53, farm laborer.

On 26 December 1934, Obert Bullock, 39, of Wilson, son of Frank and Lizzie Bullock, married Hattie Smith, 23, of Wilson, daughter of Sam and Silly Ann Smith, in Wilson.

  • Mack Bullock

In 1917, Mack Bullock registered for the World War I draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 26 May 1895 in Edgecombe County, N.C.; lived in Wilson; worked in Noah Tate‘s pool room; and was single.

  • George J. Bullock

In the 1900 census of Rocky Mount township, Nash County: on Thomas Street, farm laborer George Bulock, 35; wife Ella, 25; and children Sallie A., 9, Jack, 7, Lucy, 5, Isaac, 3, and Bettie, 1.

In the 1910 census of Toisnot township, Wilson County: on Town Creek Road, farmer George Bullock, 48; wife Ella, 39; and children Sallie A., 20, George, 17, Lucy, 15, Isaac, 13, Bettie, 12, Rosa, 9, Charlie, 6, James, 4, and Etta and Effie, 2.

In 1917, George Junius Bullock registered for the World War I draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born in 1896 in Warren County, N.C.; lived on West Nash Street, Wilson; worked as a laborer for M.W. Edmundson, Anderson Street, Wilson; and was single.

On 2 July 1920, George J. Bullock, 24, of Wilson, son of George and Ella Bullock, married Lucinda Jones, 19, of Wilson, daughter of Duff and Rebecca Jones, in Wilson. Missionary Baptist minister Charles T. Jones performed the ceremony in the presence of Gertrude Jones, Louisa Johnson, and Ruth Jones.

George Junius “Jack” Bullock died 24 December 1965 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 15 December 1894 in Wilson to George Bullock and Ella Hargrove; lived at 712 Suggs Street; worked as a tobacco factory laborer; was married; and was a World War I veteran. Etta Bullock was informant.

  • Rochelle Bullock

In 1917, Rochell Carter Bullock registered for the World War I draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born in 1896 in Wilson County; lived in Elm City; worked as a sawmill laborer for John Flowers; and was single.

Rochell Bullock died 6 May 1935 in Sleepy Hole, Nansemond County, Virginia; was single; was born in Wilson, N.C., to Edward Bullock and Lucy Allen; and worked as a laborer.

Ledger-Star (Norfolk, Va.), 14 May 1935.

  • Lendery Bunn

North Carolina World War I Service Cards 1917-1919, http://www.ancestry.com

Taylor fined big for buggy accident.

Wilson Times, 3 December 1918.

——

  • Leonard Taylor — in 1917, Leonard Taylor registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 22 August 1883 in Pineville, Georgia; lived at 708 Viola; worked as a pipe layer for Henry Tart; and had a wife and two children. Fifty dollars was a staggering fine in 1918 — the equivalent of more than $1000 today. It’s hard to imagine that Taylor could have paid it, much less doctor bills and a buggy repair bill.
  • Henry Tart