Black Joy

Happy Valentine’s Day 2026!

We moved into 1401 Carolina Street just before my first birthday and left just before my tenth. I haven’t been inside this little brick house in nearly 50 years, but I can describe its every detail, inside and out. My deep connection to my community and its people was forged in those first ten years. Safe in the nest of my knowledge-seeking, passion-encouraging family, I flourished — a sensitive, inquisitive, observant child.

Today, Black Wide-Awake celebrates foundational love! Cheers to Beverly and Rederick Henderson and the East Wilson that made me!

Black History Month Throwback: Wilson’s black baseball history.

A recent Facebook post by Wilson’s new Minor League baseball team, the Warbirds, reminded me of the city’s deep black baseball roots. Check out the links below.

americas-game

homestead-grays-at-spring-camp

pop-eye-leonard-and-the-wilson-braves

wilson-braves-negro-nine

homestead-grays-play-the-new-york-black-yankees-in-wilson

the-stantonsburg-hawks

rest-in-power-fred-valentine

elm-city-negro-giants-were-not-boasting-but-we-believe-were-the-best

Figuring this family tree thing out.

Lane Street Project has enriched my life in many ways, among them introduction to wonderful people I would not otherwise have gotten to know. Portia Newman is one. Though we are both graduates of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and, it turns out, both among the unnumbered thousands of Adam T. Artis‘ descendants, more than two decades separate our paths through Wilson. Nonetheless, we share an unshakeable sense of family and place and a deep commitment to paying forward our gratitude for both. I was not surprised, then, to see this morning that Portia was giving us gifts on her birthday.

Here, in four parts and a dope video, are Portia Newman’s reflections on the importance of documenting family history and her plan for doing so. All of us can be, must be, preservationists. Save your stories.

And, here, listen to Portia’s grandfather, Donald Lee Woodard Sr. talk about his life in the Red Hill area near Stantonsburg. “You just got to live your life. By being 98*, I have seen a lot and been through a lot.” (Be sure to watch to the very end!)

Happy birthday, Portia!

28 Books for 28 days.

Twenty-eight books I recommend to contextualize the history and culture of Wilson County, North Carolina,’s African-American people, in no particular order. Search for a review of one book every day this Black History Month. You’ve got the rest of the year to read them.

  1. Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine: Recipes and Reminiscences of a Family, Norma Jean and Carole Darden (1978)
  2. African-American Music Trails of Eastern North Carolina, Beverly Patterson and Sarah Bryan (2013)
  3. Greater Freedom: the Evolution of the Civil Rights Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina, Charles W. McKinney Jr. (2010)
  4. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Stories of Social Upheaval, Saidiya Hartman (2019)
  5. The Place You Love Is Gone: Progress Hits Home, Melissa Holbrook Pierson (2006)
  6. Hidden History: African American Cemeteries in Central Virginia, Lynn Rainville (2014)
  7. Throwed Away: Failures of Progress in Eastern North Carolina, Linda Flowers (1990)
  8. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, Edward E. Baptist (2014)
  9. Sherrod Village: A Memoir, Barbara Williams Lewis (2014)
  10. Elm City: A Negro Community in Action, C.L. Spellman (1942)
  11. Race and Politics in North Carolina 1872-1901: The Black Second, Eric Anderson (1980)
  12. No Justice No Peace, Algernon McNeil (2015)
  13. The Rise of a Southern Town, Wilson, North Carolina 1849-1920, Patrick M. Valentine (2002)
  14. Jim Crow in North Carolina: The Legislative Program from 1865 to 1920, Richard A. Paschal (2020)
  15. To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner, Carole Emberton (2022)
  16. Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque, Ed and Ryan Mitchell (2023)
  17. Cemetery Citizens: Reclaiming the Past and Working for Justice in American Burial Grounds, Adam Rosenblatt (2024)
  18. ‘Make the Gig’: The History of the Monitors, John Harris (2024)
  19. In the Pines: A Lynching, A Lie, A Reckoning, Grace Elizabeth Hale (2023)
  20. Black Folks: The Roots of the Black Working Class, Blair LM Kelley (2023)
  21. Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, A National Movement, Emilye Crosby, ed. (2011)
  22. Historic Wilson in Vintage Postcards, J. Robert Boykin III (2003)
  23. Slavery in North Carolina 1748-1775, Marvin L. Michael Kay and Lorin Lee Cary (2000)
  24. From a Cat House to the White House: The Story of an African-American Chef, Jesse Pender (2007)
  25. Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, David Zucchino (2020)
  26. North Carolina’s Free People of Color 1715-1885, Warren E. Milteer Jr. (2020)
  27. George Henry White: An Even Chance in the Game of Life, Benjamin Justesen (2001)
  28. History of African Americans in North Carolina, Jeffrey J. Crow, Paul D. Escott, and Flora J. Hadley Watelington (2002)

Black History Month 2026.

February is generally business as usual for Black Wide-Awake, but this year is the 100th anniversary of Dr. Carter G. Woodson‘s Negro History Week, and folks are ripping down exhibits, so I’m going to go a little harder on the promotion, research, preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of Black history, culture, and genealogy of Wilson County, North Carolina. I encourage you to do the same for a place you love. I wish there were a B.W.A. equivalent for every county in these United States. Starting one may not be your path, but you can search out your local history organizations, your cemetery preservation groups, your musicians and poets and playwrights, and show them and their work some tangible love this month. Discover your community’s historic heroes and shout their names!