Samuel H. Vick overcame odds.

Wilson Daily Times, 24 February 2003.

This Black History Month piece offers a few nuggets for further research on Samuel H. Vick:

  • “His father … had three brothers, all having different last names depending on the white families to whom they belonged.” [Who were Daniel Vick’s brothers?]
  • newspaper articles reported that, on Vick’s first day as postmaster, “[g]un-toting black citizens lined the streets to serve as bodyguards because he had received so many threats” [Wowww.]
  • “The Independent School continued to operate until 1923 when the local school system opened the Wilson Colored High School ….” [Other sources estimated a ten-year run, but this makes sense.]

28 Books for 28 days.

Twenty-eight books I recommend to contextualize the history and culture of Wilson County, North Carolina,’s African-American people, in no particular order. Search for a review of one book every day this Black History Month. You’ve got the rest of the year to read them.

  1. Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine: Recipes and Reminiscences of a Family, Norma Jean and Carole Darden (1978)
  2. African-American Music Trails of Eastern North Carolina, Beverly Patterson and Sarah Bryan (2013)
  3. Greater Freedom: the Evolution of the Civil Rights Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina, Charles W. McKinney Jr. (2010)
  4. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Stories of Social Upheaval, Saidiya Hartman (2019)
  5. The Place You Love Is Gone: Progress Hits Home, Melissa Holbrook Pierson (2006)
  6. Hidden History: African American Cemeteries in Central Virginia, Lynn Rainville (2014)
  7. Throwed Away: Failures of Progress in Eastern North Carolina, Linda Flowers (1990)
  8. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, Edward E. Baptist (2014)
  9. Sherrod Village: A Memoir, Barbara Williams Lewis (2014)
  10. Elm City: A Negro Community in Action, C.L. Spellman (1942)
  11. Race and Politics in North Carolina 1872-1901: The Black Second, Eric Anderson (1980)
  12. No Justice No Peace, Algernon McNeil (2015)
  13. The Rise of a Southern Town, Wilson, North Carolina 1849-1920, Patrick M. Valentine (2002)
  14. Jim Crow in North Carolina: The Legislative Program from 1865 to 1920, Richard A. Paschal (2020)
  15. To Walk About in Freedom: The Long Emancipation of Priscilla Joyner, Carole Emberton (2022)
  16. Ed Mitchell’s Barbeque, Ed and Ryan Mitchell (2023)
  17. Cemetery Citizens: Reclaiming the Past and Working for Justice in American Burial Grounds, Adam Rosenblatt (2024)
  18. ‘Make the Gig’: The History of the Monitors, John Harris (2024)
  19. In the Pines: A Lynching, A Lie, A Reckoning, Grace Elizabeth Hale (2023)
  20. Black Folks: The Roots of the Black Working Class, Blair LM Kelley (2023)
  21. Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, A National Movement, Emilye Crosby, ed. (2011)
  22. Historic Wilson in Vintage Postcards, J. Robert Boykin III (2003)
  23. Slavery in North Carolina 1748-1775, Marvin L. Michael Kay and Lorin Lee Cary (2000)
  24. From a Cat House to the White House: The Story of an African-American Chef, Jesse Pender (2007)
  25. Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, David Zucchino (2020)
  26. North Carolina’s Free People of Color 1715-1885, Warren E. Milteer Jr. (2020)
  27. George Henry White: An Even Chance in the Game of Life, Benjamin Justesen (2001)
  28. History of African Americans in North Carolina, Jeffrey J. Crow, Paul D. Escott, and Flora J. Hadley Watelington (2002)

Black History Month 2026.

February is generally business as usual for Black Wide-Awake, but this year is the 100th anniversary of Dr. Carter G. Woodson‘s Negro History Week, and folks are ripping down exhibits, so I’m going to go a little harder on the promotion, research, preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of Black history, culture, and genealogy of Wilson County, North Carolina. I encourage you to do the same for a place you love. I wish there were a B.W.A. equivalent for every county in these United States. Starting one may not be your path, but you can search out your local history organizations, your cemetery preservation groups, your musicians and poets and playwrights, and show them and their work some tangible love this month. Discover your community’s historic heroes and shout their names!

The apprenticeship of Dewitt, Charles, George, and Ike.

On 11 January 1866, Malvina E. Rountree entered into an agreement with the Goldsboro District Office of the Freedmen’s Bureau to indenture four orphaned children — Dewitt, 13, Charles, 10, George, 8, and Ike, 6.

Malvina Gill Rountree was the widow of Jonathan D. Rountree, who died in 1865. By time the 1870 census was counted, none of these children were in her household.

Flat Rock Church of Christ holds revival.

Wilson Daily Times, 21 May 1946.

In May 1946, Evangelist Lloyd Price, a preacher out of Sampson County, North Carolina, conducted a revival at Flat Rock Church of Christ. Flat Rock at that time was at 402 Vick’s Alley. By late 1948, Elder D.C. Artis had established a second church with the same name in Sims, which remains active today.

Artis was a Greene County native who arrived in Wilson in the mid-1940s by way of Wayne County. In 1950, he, his wife Rosa Lee, and adopted daughter Mary lived in Parker’s Alley, Wilson. (Parker’s was a later name for Vick’s Alley.)

David C. Artis died 15 October 1972 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 27 April 1903 to Ruffin Artis and Florence Cannon; was married to Rosa Lee Artis; lived at 402 Parker Avenue; worked as a carpenter and minister; and was buried in Masonic cemetery.

The last will and testament of Daniel Land (1851).

In a will dated 29 March 1851, Daniel Land left his wife Martha a life estate in, among items, four enslaved people — Jason, Violet, Boston, and Venus. (Land lived in a section of Edgecombe County that became Wilson County in 1855. Interestingly, in the 1850 census of Edgecombe County, Land, whose occupation was “overseer of the poor,” claimed no slaves.)

Land’s estate was inventoried and sold on 21 December 1857. The administrator made note of the property passed via the terms of his will.

However, his remaining enslaved people were sold on twelve months’ credit: Louis, Mary and her child George, John, Cherry and her child Lonzo, and Caroline.

——

  • Jason Land

On 21 August 1866, Jason Land and Caroline Pender registered their four-year cohabitation with a Wilson County justice of the peace.

  • Venus Armstrong Drake

In late December 1867 or very early January 1868, Thomas Drake, son of Thomas Avent and Lucinda Drake, applied for a marriage in Wilson to marry Venis Armstrong, daughter of Mary Armstrong. The license was not returned.

In the 1880 census of Town of Toisnot, Wilson County: railroad worker Thomas Drake, 34, wife Venus, 28, and children Jane, 9, Isaac, 7, John T., 3, and an unnamed infant, 1 month.

In the 1900 census of Elm City, Toisnot township, Wilson County: on Broad Street, farmer Thomas Drake, 55; wife Virginia [Venus], 46; and children Mattie, 20, cook, Ernest, 15, and Clarence, 11.

In the 1910 census of Toisnot township, Wilson County: Tom Drake, 65, wife Venus, 62, and  daughter Pearl, 10.

Venus Drake died 5 February 1917 in Elm City, Wilson County. Per her death certificate, she was about 55 years old; was a midwife; was born in Edgecombe County to Amos Braswell and Mary Braswell; and was buried in [Elm City] “col. cemetery.” Tom Drake was informant.

  • Mary Land Braswell

In 1866, Mary Land and Amos Braswell registered their 14-year cohabitation with a Wilson County justice of the peace.

In the 1870 census of California township, Pitt County, N.C.: farmhand Amos Braswell, 40; wife Mary, 35; children John, 17, and Polly, 15; and Fereby Bassett, 28.

  • Lewis Land

In the 1870 census of Joyners township, Wilson County: Lewis Land, 30, farm laborer; wife Martha, 29; and Winnie, 10, and Charles, 2.

North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.

Happy birthday, Wilson.

 

The City of Wilson celebrated its 177th birthday today. Take a look at “our city’s story,” they said. “Explore Wilson’s history and timeline.” 

I did. And it’s neither the story, nor the history, nor much of a timeline. I suppose glossy boosterism is one way a city can choose to commemorate its past, but which past? In 2026, Wilson has adopted the viewpoint of its business and political elite, furthering cementing this limited perspective as the one that counts.

Mere days from February 1, I’m reminded of the why of Black Wide-Awake. In the end, it’s up to us to write ourselves into the narrative.