In the face of stiff resistance by tobacco stemming companies against paying a minimum wage — $11/week — the ever-fiery Rev. Richard A.G. Foster made a blunt statement. As these businesses wanted to “keep Negroes poor and ignorant,” and “the white South still feels that Negro labor is slave labor,” “Negroes that live in the South must turn their attention to self help.”
Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 19 November 1938.
[This photo says “1940s” or maybe even ’50s to me, not 1926, but 1926 is how it is labeled.]
Tobacco Production, 1926, Wilson County, Black and White Photographic Print 0019, in the Commercial Museum (Philadelphia, Pa.) Collection of North Carolina Photographs (P0072), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Wilson County Negro Extension Agent Cecil A. Spellman did not stint. His two-part 1939 Annual Narrative Report is a 146-page treasure chest whose nuggets create a finely textured view of rural African-American life just before World War II — home demonstration, community entertainment, school improvement, test farms, engineering activities, tobacco work, gardening, corn-growing, meat-cutting, 4-H clubs, camp, spelling matches, Negro Health Week, projects, spotlights on people, houses, and schools — including photographs — and more.
There’s nothing to do but present Spellman’s report in totality, serialized.
The 66 pages of Section 1 are devoted to general and adult extension work. We meet Outstanding Man of the Year, Henry Armstrong of Elm City, and Outstanding Woman of the Year, Mrs. Charles Ruffin [Henrietta Ruffin] of the Saratoga side of the Fountain area.
Spellman praised the location of the county extension office at 559 1/2 East Nash Street, Camillus L. Darden‘s commercial building. He then described the equipment and furnishings supplied by the county (plus a few things he brought in.)
Spellman set out the organization of the extension agency and identified the eight-member County Advisory Committee as Seth T. Shaw, Thomas Hilliard, Robert L. Mitchell, Earnest A. Jones, Charlie Ruffin, Chester Woodard, John H. Clay, and Isaac Renfrow.
Spellman briefly mentioned the 4-H Club, which would be covered in detail in Section II, noting that its council met at Darden High School’s auditorium. He also lauded the principals of the county schools that hosted 4-H Clubs “as a very helpful body in the promotion of junior work in the county.”
Spellman then praised the agent training program he had attended at Hampton Institute [now Hampton University] in July.
North Carolina County Agent Annual Narrative Report, Wilson County, N.C., North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, UA102.002, Special Collections Research Center at N.C. State University.
In 1949, Charlotte, North Carolina,’s Hollywood Film Company produced a 32-minute promotional film touting Wilson’s businesses, churches, schools, and neighborhoods. Predictably, not a single African-American person or place was mentioned, much less featured, though the town’s population was about 40% Black. This is the kind of erasure that will have you thinking your people never contributed, never built institutions, never thrived. Black people, however, can be glimpsed throughout the film, hard at work. Below, a few stills, starting with a scarfed African-American woman crossing Nash Street at Goldsboro Street, the courthouse and Confederate monument visible behind her. The other images depict tobacco warehouse and factory laborers, a laundry worker, and a bakery worker. The film also showed men working in a lumber yard and a concrete pipe manufacturer. Do you recognize anyone?
My thanks to the late Steve Brown for a DVD copy of this film.
The Daily News, 20 September 1900.
Wilson was never a big cigarette-producing town, but around the turn of the twentieth century Wells-Whitehead Tobacco Company’s Carolina Brights brand and, for a briefer, later moment, Edwin-Nadal Tobacco Company’s Contentnea brand were made here. While tobacco processing plants were major seasonal employers of African-American workers, especially women, higher-paying cigarette jobs were whites only.
Wilson Daily Times, 21 August 1942.
African-American workers at conveyor belts at an unidentified tobacco factory in Wilson.
Clipping courtesy of J. Robert Boykin III.
Wilson Daily Times, 28 August 1937.
Among other things George H. Holman recalled about his early days in Wilson was disinterring Confederates from the old white Wilson cemetery for reburial in Maplewood.
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In the 1870 census of Bushy Fork township, Person County, N.C., George Holeman, 22, is a farm laborer in the household of white farmer Thomas H. Briggs, 56.
On 6 September 1892, George Holman, 24, son of West and Nancy Jane Holman, of Person County, N.C., married Bell Noell, 18, daughter of Chas. and Chis. Noell, of Person County, in Roxboro, North Carolina.
In the 19o0 census of Wilson, Wilson County: day laborer George Holdman, 46; wife Isibeller, 27, cooking; and sons Nathanial, 5, and Arther, 1.
In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: George Holden [sic], 57; wife Isabella, 35; and children Arthur, 11, and Thelma, 8.
In the 1920 census of Wilson, Wilson County: widow [sic] Belle Holeman, 40, private cook; son John, 21, oil mill laborer; and daughter-in-law Thelma, 2o,
In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Holmon Geo (c; Hattie) lab Watson Whse h 601 Wiggins
In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Holmon Geo lab h 601 Wiggins
George Holman died 9 January 1940 at the State Hospital in Goldsboro, Wayne County, N.C. Per his death certificate, he was born in 1856; was a widower; lived in Wilson County; and had worked as a laborer. He was buried at the State Hospital.
Wilson Daily Times, 10 August 1940.
Hartford Bess‘ Handel’s Chorus sang at the 1940 Tobacco Festival, performing scenes that we would today find cringey. In the spirit of “don’t hate the player, hate the game,” I try not to judge.
The City of Wilson commenced its annual Tobacco Festival parades in 1936. These appalling images were shot in July 1939 as the parade advanced up Nash Street. This is what passed for fun in Wilson as weeds shot toward the sky in Vick Cemetery.
A giant mammy.
The Junior King and Queen in a palanquin carried by shirtless black men. This mini-float, sponsored by the Lions Club, took a second-place prize.
Another Lions Club’s parade entry. White boys dressed as big game hunters lead bare-chested, barefooted black boys whose features have been exaggerated with white paint. They are dressed as “natives” and wear clown hats. (The top photo was taken after the parade at the Charles L. Coon High School athletic field. The bottom was shot as the boys approached Tarboro Street.) As described in the 18 July 1939 edition of the Wilson Daily Times, “the Frank Buck motif got in the parade again with an alligator in a cage and ‘Bring ’em back alive‘ painted on it.'”
My thanks to J. Robert Boykin III for sharing these photos, which were likely taken for the Wilson Chamber of Commerce.
Wilson Daily Times, 30 March 1917.
I can think of a few people who surely regretted “the occurrence” more than Dempsey Haynes.
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In the 19o0 census of Springhill township, Wilson County: farmer John Rentfrow, 40; wife Marguaratt, 37; and children Franklin, 19, John T., 15, Mattie H., 12, Fannie, 10, Clinton, 7, and Orie, 1.
In the 1910 census of Springhill township, Wilson County: John Rentfrow, 50; wife Margarett, 48; children Clinton, 17, Ora, 11, and Ella, 8; and granddaughter Nancy Earp, 2.
Clinton Renfrow died 29 March 1917 in Old Fields township, Wilson County. Per his death certificate, he was b0rn 14 October 1895 to John and Margrette Rentfrow; was single; worked as a farmer; and was buried in Wilson County. Cause of death: “Accidently cut with ax while cutting with father [partner?] and bled to death.” (This is curious phrasing. Dempsey Haynes was neither Renfrow’s father nor his partner.) The death certificate further indicates that no physician saw Renfrow (before or after he bled out); there was no inquest into the circumstances. In other words, there was only Haynes’ version of events.