Pittsburgh Courier, 19 February 1938.
——
- Rev. Richard A.G. Foster
- Dr. W.H. Phillips
- James A. (Billboard) Jackson
race
Recommended reading, no. 23: In the Pines.
We’ve read of J.C. Farmer, shot to death by a posse in his mother’s yard in 1946. The official version of the altercation that led to Farmer’s murder has never sat right with me, and Hale’s searing work helps me understand my discomfort. In this award-winning work, Hale explores white supremacy, violence, (in)justice, and her own family’s role in the murder of an unarmed Black man in piney-woods Mississippi.
B.W.A. Historical Marker Series, no. 12: First Presbyterian Church of Elm City.
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.
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF ELM CITY
Est. 1904. In 1964, Ku Klux Klan threatened integrated volunteers painting church, prompting state police intervention.
For more about the church and this incident, see here and here.
Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, August 2024.
Wilson memories: an exhibit.
Through September 1. 14 people with deep roots in Wilson — 7 black, 7 white — speak of memory, history, and territory.
American Center for Photographers, 230 Goldsboro Street South, Wilson.
Remembering resistance: First Presbyterian Church of Elm City.
Sixty years ago this month, a local Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan threatened violence to stop an integrated crew of volunteers and church members from painting Elm City’s First Presbyterian Church’s old wooden building. Governor Terry Sanford’s promise of police protection restored order.
The following month, however, when volunteers returned, state police thwarted two attempted arsonists who splashed gasoline around the church’s steps under cover of night. Recently, I learned that State Archives of North Carolina holds a collection of 32 images captured by a News and Observer photographer sent to Elm City as painting began. An unnamed freelance reporter covering the story for the New York Times seems to have been on site the same day as the photographer, mentioning the coat of white paint applied to one side of the church, the troopers guarding the site, and a small crowd of white onlookers.
NO.64.7.114.006, -007, -018, -020, -028, -029, -031. From the N&O Negative Collection, State Archives of North Carolina. Photo copyrighted by the News and Observer. Illegal to use without express permission from the N&O. I am grateful to Director of Multimedia and Photography Scott Sharpe and Processing Archivist Ian F.G. Dunn for permission to share these photographs.
Dardens cross the color line.
Until about the 1930s, white undertakers occasionally handled African-American bodies, but this is the sole instance I have found of a Black undertaker preparing a white person for burial. Here, Charles H. Darden & Son buried the infant son of Walter Pool and Pennie Gordon, who was “premature lived only a few hrs after birth.”
For the first time, white people cannot ride with those of color.
Wilson Times, 9 June 1899.
B.W.A. Historical Marker Series, no. 2: Vick Cemetery.
In this series, which will post on occasional Wednesdays, I populate the landscape of Wilson County with imaginary “historic markers” commemorating people, places, and events significant to African-American history or culture.
We been here.
VICK CEMETERY
8-acre public African-American cemetery est. 1913. Cared for by families with scant city funding. Allowed to decline; closed in 1950s. After denying ownership for decades, city removed headstones and graded land circa 1995; installed single monument. Utility poles placed in 1997. In 2022, ground-penetrating radar disclosed 4224+ graves. Reconsecrated by community 5 August 2023.
Sharp wanted Daniel Vick.
The State Chronicle, 3 May 1884.
Another account of Daniel Vick‘s appointment as mail carrier in 1884. (Note that Vick’s job involved transporting mail from the train station to the post office, not delivering it from house to house.)
The enumeration for whites.
I was looking for an African-American family in the Evansdale area when I ran across this notation in the 1910 census of Stantonsburg township. A closer look revealed that enumerator R.B. Barnes divided Enumeration District 110 into four sections — the white residents of the town of Stantonsburg, the black residents of the town of Stantonsburg, the black residents (who made up the majority) of the rest of the township, and finally the rest of the white residents.
No other township is enumerated this way and, in fact, I’ve never seen this imposed segregation in any other census record anywhere.