The Darden Red Raiders?

Wilson Daily Times, 29 September 1938.

The Red Raiders of Darden? I have never known Darden High School’s mascot to be anything other than the mighty Trojan, and the school colors were blue and white. I’ll have to dig into this.

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  • Coach Miller — John M. “Bing” Miller Jr.
  • Glenwood Bass — Noah Glenwood Bess. In 1942, Glenwood Bess registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 25 October 1922 in Wilson; lived at 208 Pender Street; his contact was Mrs. Clinton Bess [mother]; and he was not employed.
  • C.C. Dawson — Clarence C. Dawson Jr. In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 619 Green Street, Charlie Thomas, 74; daughter Sarah Bryant, 29, movie theatre cashier; her husband Willie, 29, bicycle shop repairman; and children Jean, 6, and Fay G., 5; daughter Beatrice Neal, 29; her husband Willie, 28, retail grocery delivery boy; and grandsons Clarence Dawson, 17, and Thomas Dawson, 13.
  • George Swinney — in the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 602 Viola Street, Samuel Swinney, 76, painter, daughters Ester, 22, a tobacco stemmer, and Gracie, 22, superintendent at NYA project, and sons Johnnie R., 18, “in CCC camp,” and George, 17.
  • Leroy Foster — in 1940, Leroy Foster registered for the World War II draft. Per his registration card, he was born 10 January 1917 in Wilson; lived at 303 North Vick Street; his contact was sister Carrie Highsmith, 1910 North 21st Street, Philadelphia; and he was a student at Livingstone College, Salisbury, N.C.

Taylor and Gilliam Alleys.

I’ve long been curious about the trio of little houses behind the Mary Jane Taylor Sutzer house in the 500 block of East Nash Street. In an interview a few months ago, Samuel C. Lathan mentioned them:

Lathan: … And Rev. [Russell B.] Taylor had an orchard.

Henderson: Oh, okay.

Lathan: Back there where those houses at down Nash Street.

Henderson: Okay. Back behind?

Lathan: Yeah, it was an orchard back there. …

Not long after, I noticed a little notation in a margin of the 1940 census of Wilson. Listed adjacent to the Taylor household were the three households of  … Taylor’s Alley.

Here they are yesterday morning:

Per description in the nomination form for Wilson Central Business-Tobacco Warehouse Historic District, Sutzer purchased the house on the left from Alfred Robinson prior to building her own house in 1915. The two dwellings on the right are described as “small, four-bay by one-bay, two-room bungaloid houses.”

A little further west on the 500 block of East Nash, the census records another alley, Gilliam’s, with a duplex.

The 1930 Sanborn fire insurance map of Wilson reveals Gilliam’s Alley as the tiny space running from Nash Street between Dr. Matthew S. Gilliam‘s medical office and the Orange Hotel. (Of the buildings shown below, only the Orange still stands.)

Photo by Lisa Y. Henderson, October 2025.

Black Wide-Awake is 10 years old!

Black Wide-Awake simmered on a back burner for years; my first post was titled “At last.” Ten years and almost 7000 posts later, among the greatest joys this blog has brought me are the people I’ve met and relationships I’ve built. I’m grateful for the ways you enrich my understanding of a place I love, and I’m honored to have brought gifts to you. Now more than ever, we have to teach ourselves, tell our own stories, save our own spaces, preserve our own past. Thank you for reading, for supporting, for commenting, for amplifying, for sharing photos and memories, for championing our dead. Black Wilson got something to say!

Normal School teachers.

The 1920 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory lists some of the staff members of the breakaway Wilson Normal and Industrial Institute, known variously as the Industrial School, the Independent School, the Wilson Training School, and here, Wilson Normal School.

Principal Mary M. Jennings and Georgia Burke (not Burton) were among the teachers who resigned in 1918 after superintendent Charles L. Coon’s assault on Mary C. Euell.

Lane Street Project: the ditch.

In just a week, the grass seed thrown by Public Works into the Vick Cemetery ditch is green and growing. Let’s hope it continues to thrive when its roots hit the sterilized soil below.

Odd Fellows Cemetery after a little Bulldog love. Thanks again!

Another view of the ditch bank at its high point.

Not a moment too soon. Here the bank has caved in.

A reminder of why we need the survey map — and need it recorded. The stake was one of the boundary markers New South Associates set.  Predictably, it — and all the other boundary stakes — fell down. The stobs once marked the head or foot of a grave detected via ground-penetrating radar. They’re lying on patch of ground scorched by Pramitol (or something similar) sprayed to try to preserve their locations.

I’ve said it before. This stretch of street is a hot mess. It’s like the backyard basketball court your Cousin Junior poured before he turned the truck in. No apparent sub-base. Thus, both the street and the patch have failed. 

A new concrete apron has been poured at the gravel utility access road that runs along Lane Park. Beyond it, no curb, no gutter until you pass Rountree Cemetery.

Interesting. Locate what?

Dr. John W. Darden, as imagined.

I am ambivalent about using artificial intelligence to restore photographs. Or, more specifically, I’m concerned about manipulated photographs supplanting original images and further blurring the line between reality and misinformation. However, the allure of AI-enhanced images is strong, as I often contend with blurry, poorly lit photographs in unnatural sepia or black-and-white tones. Photographs whose condition sometimes exacerbates the distance between us and our ancestors.

I have been experimenting with ChatGPT lately, feeding it queries and images to be restored and colorized. The results are somewhat haphazard, with many images weird and off-putting. Other times, the images are breathtakingly sharp and … alive. Black Wide-Awake exists to resurrect forgotten lives, and I believe these images are valuable to help us connect with the men and women we read about in these posts. From time to time, I’ll share the better ones here, clearly marked as AI-generated. Let me know what you think about them.

——

Dr. John W. Darden (1876-1949), physician.

The Gant-Cooke wedding.

 

Journal and Guide (Norfolk, Va.), 29 June 1940.

Georgia Eugenia Cooke married George William Gant at Saint John A.M.E. Zion Church in 1940. Members of the wedding party from Wilson included Clara G. Cooke, Vertist Crawford, Annie E. Cooke, Jerry L. Cooke Sr., Monte Vick, Henderson Cooke, Jerry L. Cooke Jr., Randall James, Malcolm Williams, Charles James, Milton Fisher, and Edwin Cooke.