Institutions

The incorporation of the W.N.C.&I. Institute.

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:

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.

Corporations Book 2, page 131.

Convicts sent to Toisnot township to build roads.

We read here of North Carolina’s Good Roads Policy, which authorized counties to use mobile convict labor camps, manned overwhelmingly by African-American convicts, to build roads. Above, minutes from the 8 September 1903 Wilson County Commission meeting reflect the assignment of “the convict force” to Toisnot township to work on a road project for up to a month. George D. Green, chairman of the Commission, was ordered to “take such steps as necessary to supply the food and have same cooked by the convicts of this County for the road hands.” Also, W.H. Pridgen was ordered to “have 3 sections of 16 feet each of Portable convict quarters built.”

This 1996 article about a prison cage found behind Angus Barn in Raleigh and donated to the State Department of Corrections includes photographs of two other portable convict cages known to exist today in North Carolina. See also this 1994 article.

The Colored Freemasons buy land at Rocky Branch.

In April 1896, Cherry Hinnant, Henry R. Hinnant and wife Pennie Adella Hinnant, and John T. Revell sold Dock H. Hinnant, Vandorn Hinnant, and Guilford Wilder a parcel of land adjacent to the “colored Christian church,” i.e. Rocky Branch United Church of Christ, and “colored free school” number 12, i.e. the precursor to Rocky Branch School. The Hinnants and Wilder were officers and trustees of Rocky Blue Lodge #56, Prince Hall Masons.

Deed Book 43, page 442, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.

——

  • Dock H. Hinnant — in the 1900 census of Springhill township, Wilson County: farmer Dock H. Hinnant, 35; wife Alice, 30; and children James A., 16, John A., 15, Mary E., 10, Annie M., 8, William R., 6, and Clarence, 5.
  • Vandorn Hinnant — In the 1910 census of Spring Hill township, Wilson County: farmer Vandorne Hinnant, 48, wife Betsy J., 47, and children Ezekiel, 22, Billie, 19, Willie, 13, Oscar, 12, Luther, 10, Regest W., 9, Roland, 8, Ralon, 6, Ollion, 4, and Roy E., 2.
  • Guilford Wilder

Lane Street Project: spending the money.

After last week’s city council meeting, Mayor Carlton Stevens advised LSP Senior Force Leader Castonoble Hooks that a proposal for spending money allotted for Vick Cemetery would be available Monday. I immediately requested a copy.

On Tuesday, Mayor Stevens emailed me the city’s plan. For transparency, I am sharing the City’s plan. The Mayor’s words are in blue bold below. My thoughts, which largely track my emailed response to mayor and council but include extra editorializing), are in red.

The following is the plan that we have for the $50,000 that was given by Rep. [Ken] Fontenot during his tenure as State Representative.
As previously stated, the City of Wilson received an allocation of $50,000  from the State of North Carolina for capital improvements to Vick Cemetery. The City’s intended use of these funds is shown below.
This plan addresses the recommendations made by New South Associates in August 2023. New South Associates provided the recommendations below following its ground-penetrating radar survey. The full report is available for review at the link below. There was no link included in the email. However, if you’d like to read New South’s report, it is here. Please note that the City’s plan does not address, or even mention, all of New South’s recommendations.
Vick Cemetery was deeded to the Cemetery Commission in 2022. At that time the Cemetery Commission assumed responsibility for the maintenance of the cemetery. Notwithstanding this ownership transfer, the City will implement the recommendations from New South Associates. The City has made this curious assertion more than once, which seems to imply that it no longer bears responsibility for Vick. It’s true that it deeded Vick to the Cemetery Commission in 1922, which has since maintained the cemetery. However, the Commission is not a private or independent entity. It is a creature of the City of Wilson, with commissioners appointed by the City, and is ultimately controlled by the City. Here’s a passage from the City’s Fiscal Year 2026 Proposed Budget:
Rep. Fontenot’s $50,000 was allocated to the City of Wilson, not the Cemetery Commission, and the City commissioned the ground-penetrating radar survey in 2022 (prior to transfer, to be clear.) Finally, the City’s action and inaction over more than 100 years harmed Vick, so who better to remediate it?
All work will be done in coordination with and at the direction of New South Associates. The city will further communicate specific timelines to the cemetery commission as the work plan progresses.
Add monument signage to the corners of the cemetery. A survey of Vick Cemetery will be completed and used in conjunction with the maps prepared by New South to determine the location of the signage. The monument signage will be consistent with cemetery signage and would have minimal ground disturbance. The survey will be tied to grid and filed with the Wilson County Register of Deeds. The City’s authorization of a detailed survey to be filed with the Register of Deeds is good news indeed. We’ve been asking for one since the City unaccountably failed to obtain a survey map two years ago. See here and here and here and here. Adding signage with minimal ground disturbance to the corners of the cemetery, under the guidance of New South Associates, is also an appreciated step toward raising the visibility of, and thereby the respect for, Vick Cemetery. 
Reappoint bricks at the central monument. Some of the bricks at the monument and walkway are damaged and will be repaired or replaced by hand with minimal ground disturbance. Many of the bricks in the monument pad were inexpertly set and have shifted with soil subsidence and upheaval and root growth. Though their placement over graves was grievously lamentable, repairing and repointing them signals respect for Vick’s dead.
Replace the existing stakes with appropriate grave markers. The stakes placed by New South to mark the edges of the cemetery have been sprayed to control vegetation. Replacing them with at-grade markers will allow for more efficient maintenance. I am not clear about this one. New South placed two types of markers at the modern-day edges of the cemetery. The first were ordinary wooden survey stakes marking the edge of the public right-of-way. The second were small wooden numbered blocks or pegs spray-painted orange and placed at the head and foot of graves that straddle or lie just outside the modern boundary (in what we now regard as right-of-way.) Will the “at-grade markers” distinguish between the two? What type of “at-grade marker” is contemplated?
Stormwater and erosion mitigation. The City of Wilson’s Stormwater Department will lightly hand rake the ditch and slopes and place seed, straw and matting on the slopes as needed to control any further erosion. The city will also research diverting drainage at the east end of the cemetery and filling the ditch to create a more-manageable slope. I appreciate the minimally invasive option of seeding the ditch bank versus installation of riprap or erecting a retention wall for erosion control. I assume the potential diversion mentioned would be aimed at alleviating the problem area shown below. Per New South’s survey and community knowledge, though this area is in the right-of-way, graves lie here. Thus, guidance from cemetery preservation experts is warranted.

In addition, the council has allocated $5,000 for the development and erection of a sign for Vick Cemetery.  That is something that we should sit down and discuss in the near future to get that ball rolling. Council actually approved this circa 2021, and it’s fantastic news that they will finally move to effectuate it. Interpretive signage will tell Vick Cemetery’s story and explain its significance in Wilson’s history.

While I am thrilled that Vick Cemetery will be receiving this attention, I reiterate those suggestions (not hereby addressed) set forth in my September 2 letter. I am grateful for this beginning and look forward to continuing dialogue.

I want to reiterate this last paragraph. The City’s plan does not address a number of critical demands. Among other things, there is still no proactive engagement with the descendant community. There’s no mention of investigations into the handling of Vick’s headstones or the placement of electric utility poles in the cemetery. And, most glaringly, there is no commitment to additional GPR-surveying of the public right-of-way (and other unsurveyed strips of land) to identify the location of graves, which was among New South’s recommendations. The demands, arguably, lie outside the scope of a spend plan for capital improvements. Nevertheless, they remain on the table for the continued care of this sacred space.

What are your thoughts on the City’s plans for spending the $50,000 allocated for improvements to Vick?