News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 20 August 1930.
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Members of the Ayers family were among a handful of families in the Lucama area who transitioned from black to white racial classification in the early 1900s. Bertha Ayers‘ grandfather Jesse Ayers was described as colored as late as 1914, and her aunt Harriet Ayers‘ had been prosecuted for marrying a white man in 1895. By 1920, however, this set of Ayerses had gained acceptance within the white community.
William T. Bost was the influential political correspondent and columnist for the Greensboro Daily News. Just a few days after Samuel H. Vick died, Bost wrote an editorial about Vick’s “unquiet” political life, reflecting on the aftermath of Vick’s removal from his postmaster position.
Greensboro Daily News, 13 July 1946.
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
a-continuation-of-the-bad-feelings
what-happened-when-white-perverts-threatened-to-slap-colored-school-teachers
lynching-going-on-and-there-are-men-trying-to-stand-in-with-the-white-folks
photos-of-the-colored-graded-and-independent-schools
a-big-occasion-in-the-history-of-the-race-in-this-city
womens-history-month-celebrating-the-teachers-of-the-wilson-normal-industrial-school
respectful-petition-seeks-reids-removal
lucas-testifies-that-he-accomplished-his-purpose
there-has-been-an-astonishing-occurrence-in-wilson
the-independent-school-thrives
the-incorporation-of-the-w-n-c-i-institute
And here, my Zoom lecture, “Wilson Normal and Industrial Institute: A Community Response to Injustice,” delivered in February 2022.
When Harriet Ayers married John W. Proctor in Wilson County in 1894, the couple was prosecuted for “living together as man and wife, [Proctor] being a white man and [Ayers] being a colored woman.”
Despite their conviction in a Wilson County court, the two remained together and are found in the 1900 census of Cross Roads township, Wilson County: farm laborer John W. Proctor, and wife Hattie, 26. They described themselves as white and reported they had been married six years and had no children. John Proctor died four years later in November 1904.
In January 1907, Harriet Ayers Proctor crossed into Nash County to marry Allen Whitley, another white man, and no one blinked.
In the 1920 census of Oldfields township, Wilson County: Allen J. Whitley, 34, and wife Hattie, 44.
In the 1930 census of Taylor township, Wilson County: farm laborer Allen Whitley, 45, and wife Hattie, 48.
In the 1940 census of Oldfields township, Wilson County: farmer Allen Whitley, 56; wife Hattie, 60; and lodger Jhon Bardin, 67.
Harriet Ayers Proctor Whitley died in 1953 and was buried in Maplewood Cemetery.
Erudite agricultural extension agent Cecil L. Spellman‘s Journal and Guide editorial on the Scottsboro Boys caused a kerfuffle in Wilson and got him booted from his radio program on WGTM.
Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 14 August 1937.
In 1868, Robert Hilliard Farmer and Haywood White were among 11 “d—d black Radicals” crammed into a tiny jail cell, threatened, given meagre portions of over-salted meat and deprived of water, and viciously beaten because they would not support the Democratic party. White’s cry, under torture, that he had already sworn an oath to support the Constitution and the Union hints that the men may have been members of the Union, or Loyal, League, which formed across the South during Reconstruction to mobilize freedmen to register to vote and to vote Republican. About ten days before this story broke in the Raleigh Standard, Bill Grimes, local president of the League, had been jailed in Wilson for allegedly burning down the house of a white man who had shot a black man named David Ruffin.
New-York Tribune, 19 September 1868.
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On 14 September 1869, Haywood White, son of Benj. and Selie White, married Martha Daniel, daughter of Dennis and Exie Daniel, in Wilson County.
In the 1870 census of Saratoga township, Wilson County: farm laborer Haywood White, 26; wife Martha, 17; son Robert, 11 months; and Noah Tyson, 21, farm laborer.
Perhaps, in the 1880 census of Jamesville, Martin County, N.C.: laborer Haywood White, 40; wife Martha, 30; and sons Alexandria, 15, and Elisha, 12.
On 13 April 1910, Haywood White, 60, of Black Creek township, married Luetta Oggins, 40, of Black Creek township, at White’s house.
In the 1910 census of Black Creek township, Wilson County: laborer Haywood White, 65, and wife Rosetta, 37. Haywood reported having been married three times; Rosetta, twice.
Haywood White died 14 March 1914 in Black Creek township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was born 22 November 1840 in South Carolina; was married; and worked as a farmer. B.S. Jordan of Wilson was informant.
News and Observer, 18 June 1912.
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The Appeal (Saint Paul, Minn.), 13 April 1912.
Wilson Daily Times, 9 April 1930.
Statesville Landmark, 9 December 1902.
