Photographs

Lane Street Project: see it for yourself.

Rather than the dialogue we have begged for, in September 2025 the City announced its choice to communicate about Vick via the passive, uni-directional, highly controlled medium of its website. Judging by its lax updating of info about prized projects like the baseball stadium — “what’s next? The buildings in the stadium footprint will be demolished soon.” — we knew where this was going. The City of Wilson is nothing if not predictable, and here we are.

One week and a day later, and silence still from the City of Wilson concerning what happened at Vick and Odd Fellows Cemeteries. No information, no explanation, no apology. From where I sit, the silence is an ineloquent “f**k you” to the cemeteries’ descendant communities and to anyone else who cares about what happens to these sacred spaces.

I’m finally in Wilson, and here’s what I saw yesterday afternoon.

 

Learn more about the Tate family plot here. Also, review this video from February 2020. From about 1:10-1:15, I’m walking past the high point of Odd Fellows at the Dawson and Tate plots. You can see a bit of one end of the exposed Tate wall at 1:12, then a section of the missing fourth side abutting the other end a couple of seconds later. That section is gone, scooped up and hauled away, I guess, and dumped wherever they dumped everything else they scraped away.

Here’s Vick Cemetery, post “flattening,” as Rebecca Agner put it.

 

 

And here, video from July 2023, when I walked the full front edge of Vick. The little orange-painted stobs I refer to above are visible in the first 3:30 minutes. You can see how far into the top surface of Vick the excavator cut to flatten the ditch bank.

And finally, is it another broken-up grave marker? Rip-rap? The City isn’t talking.

 

 

Videos by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2025.

Helen Tate Huggins marries in Atlanta.

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 16 December 1939.

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In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: barber Noah Tate, 28; wife Hattie, 24; and children John P., 3, and Helen, 2.

In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 208 Pender, barber Noah Tate, 42; wife Hattie, 34; boarder Mary Jennings, 28, a public school teacher; and children Helen, 13, Mary Jane, 8, Andrew, 11, and Noah Jr., 3.

In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Tate Helen (c) sch tchr 307 Pender

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 307 North Pender, seamstress Hattie Tate, 44, widow, and children Hellen, 23, insurance agent, and Andrew, 21, hotel bellboy, as well as lodger Lucy Davis, a public school teacher.

In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Tate Helen (c) clk r 307 Pender

In the 1941 and 1947 Atlanta, Georgia, city directory: Huggins Edw (c; Helen) tile str h 713 Greensferry Av SW

In the 1951 Atlanta, Georgia, city directory: Huggins Edw (c; Helen T) tile str Albert W Cook h 657 Greensferry Av SW

Andrew Tate died 16 May 1977 in Wilson. He was born 8 September 1908 to Noah Tate and Hattie Pierce; was married to Helen Whitfield; lived at 506 East Vance; and was buried in Rest Haven cemetery. Informant was Helen Tate Huggins, Atlanta, Georgia.

Atlanta Constitution, 18 September 1981.

Lane Street Project: day 4, and we continue to await an explanation, an update, a plan.

Imagine you were a city council member in a certain mid-size eastern North Carolina city. Imagine learning one morning that in your district, a quarter-mile from your own front door, city-contracted excavators had scraped the ditch alongside two historic cemeteries, exposing and damaging headstones and concrete kerbing.

What would your public response be?

Tell me you would have one.

The city placed cones around the damaged marker late Friday morning. But look left. Is that another?

No? Neither you nor any of the other six council members, nor the city manager, nor the assistant city manager put in charge of the project?

No.

Photo courtesy of C. Facey.

Lane Street Project: two days later, an exposed grave marker and silence from the City.

As of this morning, this is the scene of the latest desecration of graves at Vick Cemetery. The site lies uncovered, exposed to the elements.

Do you hear something?

That’s the deafening silence from the City in the wake of this avoidable outrage. Beyond communication director Rebecca Agner’s terse comment to the Times, there has been no public statement of explanation, of apology, of anything. The absence of any public communication from the City, the failure to acknowledge the distress this incident has caused — all heighten the harm done. We demand  acknowledgment, transparency, accountability, a plan for repair, and a clear explanation of what will be done to prevent additional damage to Vick Cemetery.

Photos courtesy of T. Speight. Thank you!

Lane Street Project: yesterday, the City found a grave marker in the ditch bank at Vick Cemetery.

Yesterday morning, city contractors scraping the ditch bank alongside Vick Cemetery uncovered — and broke — a marble grave marker.

This terrible development is shocking, but hardly surprising. We’ve been screaming to anyone who will listen that there are graves in the public right-of-way.

First, the Wilson Times‘ coverage (which includes my inarticulate comments — I was so wound up). Then my less temperate thoughts about what is happening.

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Tuesday afternoon, I got a text:

Was the City working on the drainage issue? Last I heard, they were just exploring a plan. Nobody seemed to know.

Then yesterday morning, I got a call from Mayor Carlton Stevens — thank you! — who explained what had happened and assured me that work had stopped until further guidance from New South Associates. I asked for photos of the broken stone, and he obliged by returning to the site to show me via FaceTime.

Let me back up for a moment.

On 2 September 2025, I sent a letter to mayor, city manager, and council that requested, among other things:

On 25 September 2025, I posted the City’s newly revealed plans for spending the $50,000 allotted by the General Assembly for capital expenditures at Vick Cemetery. The City’s bullet point is in blue. My response (which largely tracks my communication to mayor and council) is in red. In black, further commentary.

In summary: (1) please don’t — yet again — rely solely on tools from the public works box to address the erosion problems and (2) WE NEED TO SURVEY THE PUBLIC RIGHT-OF-WAY.

I have no idea what the plan was when work started on Bishop L.N. Forbes Street Tuesday. But I know what it was not — either of the above. Apparently, contractors were “flattening the surface … in advance of stormwater work,” i.e. scraping the ditch bank not only alongside Vick Cemetery, but Odd Fellows as well. The discovery of a marble slab tilting out of the soil stopped the work, but what about this?

This is the ditch alongside Odd Fellows, and that is the broken end of the low concrete wall that once enclosed the Tate and Dawson family plots. It was exposed by the “flattening” that someone decided was a great way to stop the encroachment into and undercutting of the edge of these cemeteries by open drainage ditches.

Here, in 2025, the City of Wilson’s hubris is leading it to make the same mistakes that resulted in the removal of headstones and grading and resurfacing of Vick Cemetery circa 1995; the paving over of graves to create a parking pad in the late 1990s; the installation of power poles in Vick and Rountree Cemeteries in 1997; the destruction of headstones in City storage in the early 2000s; and the alleged damage to graves in Odd Fellows by heavy equipment while repairing a high-voltage line, also in the early 2000s (I haven’t even talked about that.)

Where does it stop? When will they listen?

There’s a City Council meeting tonight, folks. The three new council members will be installed and a mayor pro tem will be elected. After the reports, there will be a call for audience comments. I can’t be there, but I hope you can. Ask them what fresh hell they are putting our ancestors through. Tell them how you feel about the continued rough handling of our people’s graves. If these are not your people, speak out anyway. Practice radical empathy. Express your outrage. Demand better.

Esther Brown appointed to caseworker position.

Chicago Defender, 7 December 1940.

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In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 419 Hines Street, tobacco contractor Lewis Townsend, 62; wife Henretta, 60; and children Alzie Townsend, 22, tobacco factory worker, and Geneva Brown, 24; son-in-law George, 26, garage mechanic; and Ester, 1, George Jr., 4, and Martha, 2.

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 508 South Spring, George Porter, 34, pressing clothes at pressing club; Jeneva Brown, 30, and her children Brown, 15, Estelle, 13, Martha, 12, and Olive, 9; and daughter George M. Porter, 4.

Esther B. Goodwin died 21 July 1984 in Newport News, Virginia. Per her death certificate, she was born 10 January 1916 in North Carolina to George Brown and Geneva Townsend; was married to Felix Lee Goodwin; and he worked as a social worker in Tucson, Arizona.

Tucson Citizen, 30 July 1984.

In honor of Julia Bailey, “a tender mother and a faithful friend.”

My deepest gratitude to Randy Marshburn and Al Letchworth, who located and photographed the headstones of Julia Bailey and Andrew Terrell at the edge of Buckhorn Reservoir.

They recently returned to Bailey’s grave to reset the monument and place flowers in honor and remembrance.

Thank you!

Photo courtesy of R. Marshburn.

4-H Club members receive certificates.

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 13 August 1938.

In 1938, Wilson 4-H Club members racked up certificates of completion awarded by the state agricultural extension service. Among those recognized were: Mittie Sutton, Leamon Jones, Hilda Joint [Joyner], Levi Simmons, Beatrice Jones, William Bynum, Cleo Jones, Herman Alston, Hattie Armstrong, Rosa Armstrong, Mary E. Barnes, Luther Battle, Lucille Best, Lillian Bullock, John Bunch, Lucille Earl, Charlotte Exum, Marie Hilliard, John A. Jones, Willie Jones, William Kirby, Mary D. Lenzy [Lindsey], Marie Lucas, Christine Mitchell, Warren H. Mitchell, Calona Montague, Alexander Pearce, William Pearce, Ruth Sanders, Sudie Spinner, Mary Terry, and Dollie M. Williams.