Wilson Times, 3 December 1918.
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In this series, which will post on occasional Wednesdays, I populate the landscape of Wilson County with imaginary “historical markers” commemorating people, places, and events significant to African-American history or culture.
We been here.
Boycotted school to protest abuse of Black teacher Mary C. Euell in 1918, then taught at alternative Wilson Normal & Industrial Institute. In 1928, launched renowned stage and movie career in New York City spanning decades. In 1920s, lived at 332 S. Spring [now Douglas] Street.
Detail from 1925 Sanborn map of Wilson showing house in which Georgia Burke boarded.
In 1911, Annie Mitchell filed suit against Rev. Owen L.W. Smith over a land dispute. In 1907, Mitchell had purchased from Smith a lot in what is now the 500 block of East Nash Street. Per the deed, the lot measured 44 1/4 feet by 210 feet.
Soon, though, Mitchell learned that the lot was only 147 feet deep and that the back 63 feet that she thought she owned in fact was R.J. Taylor’s lot. She sued for the difference in the values of the full lot and the lot she got.
For reasons unstated, the court granted O.L.W. Smith’s motion to add Edward Moore as a party.
On 15 February 1913, Judge B.D. Cline ordered Smith to pay Mitchell $125, plus interest, and Moore to pay Smith $100, plus interest.
Civil Action Papers Concerning Land, Wilson County, N.C., 1908-1916; Wilson County, N.C., Court Records 1904-1916; http://www.familysearch.org.
In this series, which will post on occasional Wednesdays, I populate the landscape of Wilson County with imaginary “historical markers” commemorating people, places, and events significant to African-American history or culture.
We been here.
EAST NASH STREET MONUMENT COMPANY
Clarence B. Best began cutting marble and granite headstones in 1914 and in 1946 established his own monument company in his backyard at 1306 East Nash St. Known for his distinctive font, deep cuts, stylized plant motifs, and use of recycled material, thousands of Best’s headstones can be found in Wilson and surrounding counties.
Wilson Daily Times, 13 October 1945.
News and Observer, 21 October 1910.
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In the 1910 census of Dry Wells township, Nash County, N.C.: lodgers Wiley Peyton, 28, lumber laborer, and wife Nettie, 30, in the household of Theodore Williams.
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:
Corporations Book 2, page 131.
Many young men traveled north for seasonal work at resort hotels in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Pennsylvania Poconos.
Hotel Strand, Atlantic City, N.J. Image courtesy of westjersyhistory.org.
Assembly Lodge, Pocono Pines, Pa. Image courtesy of mrlocalhistory.org.
Just months after it opened, the Independent School was thriving.
In January 1919, enrollment had climbed over 500 pupils and, at a meeting at Saint John A.M.E. Zion, supporters donated $677.84 (about $13,300 in today’s money.)
Wilson Daily Times, 21 January 1919.
In March 1919, a fundraiser at First Baptist Church netted $1020.23 (about $19,000 today), and almost half came through the efforts of teachers and students like Lillian Wilson. We learn something else about the Independent School here — in the tradition of Fisk University, it fielded a corps of jubilee singers!
Wilson Daily Times, 25 March 1919.
In May 1919, the anticipated crowd for the school’s first commencement exercises was so large that organizers had to go to Goldsboro to secure a 1500-person tent. (Per the 1920 census, the population of the whole town of Wilson was only 10,612, and black people constituted about 40% of that total.)
Wilson Daily Times, 27 May 1919.
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Though nearly 20 years old, Lillian Wilson was an eighth-grade graduate of the Independent School — formally, Wilson Normal and Industrial Institute — in 1919. Her journey was common. Whether because of health challenges or need to work to help support their families, few students started school at age 6 or completed eight grades in eight years.
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Newbern Street, William Wilson, 52, livery stable groomer; wife Sarah, 48; and daughters Ellen, 23, and Lillian, 21, both tobacco factory laborers.
In the 1922 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Wilson Lillian (c) dom 1010 Woodard av
On 28 September 1923, Rufus Wooten, 22, of Wilson, son of Arthur and Susie Wooten, married Lillian Wilson, 19, of Wilson, daughter of Will and Sarah Wilson, in Wilson. Missionary Baptist minister George Cooper performed the ceremony in the presence of George W. Barnes, L.G. Harvey, and R.L. Harvey.
I don’t know who the Chicago Defender‘s Wilson correspondent was, but he (or she) filed several vivid reports in the wake of Superintendent Charles L. Coon’s assault on teacher Mary C. Euell on 9 April 1918.
On April 27, the Defender reported that school principal J.D. Reid had fled for his life after being beaten in the streets by angry citizens as he left church services. (Though it downplayed the severity of the clouting, the Wilson Daily Times reported the incident, as well as the meeting of community leaders with the school board.)
Chicago Defender, 27 April 1918.
A week later, the Defender reported that Reid was hiding out in the woods near town; that parents were refusing to send their children to school if Reid remained principal; and that three men were hauled into court because they had held their children out.
Chicago Defender, 4 May 1918.
On May 11, the defender reported Coon’s indictment on assault and battery charges and claimed Coon had allegedly said he knew how “to handle n*ggers.” Reid reportedly was still in the woods, having been spotted slipping in and out carrying food.
Chicago Defender, 11 May 1918.
