Board of Education

The purchase of land for Elvie Street School, part 1.

We saw this 1923 plat map of Daniel C. Suggs‘ property here.

Plat Book 1, page 215.

The plat map below shows that most of Suggs’ property was purchased by W.E. Batts. In 1925, a Durham auction house prepared a new plat for the Batts property.

Plat Book 3, page 17.

Here’s a present-day view of the area. New Street kept its name, but a truncated Hines Street is now Blount Street at its west end, and Elvie School Drive at its east. This map makes clear that the south end of the old Oakdale Cemetery (“colored cemetery” on both plats) lay under the circular driveway and front law of Elvie Street School [later M.M. Daniels Learning Center.] Its graves (or some of them, anyway) were moved to Rest Haven in 1941.

In 1946, to assemble land on which to build a replacement for the Sallie Barbour School, the Board of Trustees of Wilson City Schools began to buy up parcels in the property, also known as Suggs Heights and adjacent lots, including these:

  • on 26 May 1946, from Leon Powell and wife Carrie Powell — lots 12, 13, 14, and part of 11 [Deed Book 335, page 291]
  • on 12 April 1947, from W.E. Batts Jr. and wife Mildred C. Batts — block B, lots 5, 6, 15, 16, 29-36; Block C, lots 33-60; and Block E, lots 25-34 [Deed Book 333, page 256]
  • on 12 June 1947, from Sam Dixon and Evelyn F. Dixon (who had bought the lots from Hubert and Viola McPhail) — lot 14 and half of lot 13 [Deed Book 337, page 12]
  • on 8 July 1947, from Robert Lee Melton and wife Birt Melton — lot 11 and 6 1/4 feet of lot 12 of block E, facing Elmer [Elvie] Street, which had been conveyed to the Meltons by Lula Wynn on 28 February 1945 per Deed Book 295, page 461 [Deed Book 337, page 291]
  • on 25 July 1947, from Frank Norman and wife Elizabeth Norman — lot 13 and part of lot 12 of block E, conveyed by Wynn per Deed Book 295, page 465 [Deed Book 337, page 370]
  • on 28 July 1947, from Maggie Stokes and husband Turner Stokes — lots 9 and 10 of block E, purchased by the Stokeses on 20 January 1933 per Deed Book 202, page 465 [Deed Book 337, page 370]

Kerfuffle at the Board of Education.

The appointment of three populists, including Samuel H. Vick, to the Wilson County Board of Education in June 1897 created a firestorm and was condemned in the Times as a result of lawlessness and chicanery.

Notwithstanding, the new Board members were qualified at the beginning of July, and got on with their business. On July 23, C.H. Mebane issued an interim ruling recognizing Vick, George W. Connor, and Nathan Bass as Board members, as they had received a majority of votes from a majority of county commissioners during a meeting marked by confusion (and, likely, rancor.) Democrats Boykin, Moore, and Aycock were the choices of the county commissioners’ minority Democrat members. 

Wilson Daily Times, 23 July 1897.

The public schools of Wilson County, part 1.

In 1924, the Wilson County Board of Education published Superintendent Charles L. Coon’s report The Public Schools of Wilson County, North Carolina: Ten Years 1913-14 to 1923-24. I went looking for a copy today and found one in Google Books. (And, yes, this is the same Charles Coon who slapped Mary C. Euell and thereby sparked the boycott of the Wilson Colored Graded School.)

An examination of two charts in the report led to an epiphany. The first shows white schools in Wilson County in 1917; the second, white schools in 1924, after a consolidation of most one and two-room rural schools and construction of several modern brick buildings. I’d been puzzled by the apparent duplication of black and white school names in newspapers, and I immediately noticed a Lane School in the 1917 chart in the same location as the black Lane School. I looked more closely. Here were Turner, Page, Wilbanks, Pender, Minshew and Ferrells Schools, all later described as “colored.” And the 1924 chart shows none of them. I deduce that after decommission as white schools, these decrepit buildings were handed down to African-Americans for the education of their children.

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A bonus: the report includes photographs of several county schools that housed African-American children!