We first saw this gang here in another photo taken within a few minutes in front of the Mill House, a windmill-shaped grocery at the corner of Lee and Pine Streets. The neighborhood was patchily integrated in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and a handful of African-American families remained when these photos were taken in July 1944.
The back of one of the images is inscribed “the neighborhood kids.” The African-American boy in the striped shirt has been identified as Bobby Lee “Chippy” Dickerson. Dickerson is believed to have become a police officer in Teaneck, New Jersey, but I have not been able to find more information about him.
Do you know Bobby Dickerson?
Photographer unknown. Photo courtesy of Keith Boykin, a Wilson native and collector of Wilson County ephemera. Thank you!
The lands of Revolutionary War veteran Shadrach Dickinson [Dickerson] lay along Contentnea and Black Creeks in what were then Edgecombe and Wayne Counties. His small house is one of the oldest standing in Wilson County. Dickinson died in 1818 leaving a large estate that included numerous enslaved people.
A division of Dickinson’s “lands and negroes” took place in May 1819, and the report of that division shows that his children had received some of their inheritance while their father was alive.
Daughter Elizabeth Stanton received a seven year-old girl named Mourning in 1795; eight year-old Jack and ten year-old Lany in 1819; and, in the general division, Dick and Grace Sen’r.
Daughter Penny Barnes received Hester, 10, and Tamar, 8, in 1814, and Hannah in the general division.
Daughter Susanna Edmundson received Cely, 13, and Lucy, 9, in 1817; Jacob, 7, in 1818; and Anica and Cherry in the division.
Daughter Polley Thomas received Sam, 10, in 1797.
Son James Dickinson received Peter in 1809 and Harry and Clary in 1819.
Daughter Patience Dickinson received Peg and Levi in the general division.
Son William Dickinson received Dick and GraceJunior in the general division.
Daughter Martha Simms received Darkas, 9, in 1793; Arch in 1818; and Warum in the division.
Daughter Sally Jernigan received Jack, 10, and Diner, 6, in 1807; Dury, 6, in 1813; and Smitha in the division.
At least two of Shadrach Dickinson’s children — daughters Elizabeth Dickinson Stanton and Patience Dickinson Turner — migrated to Sumter/Pickens Counties, Alabama, carrying enslaved men and women with them and further sundering family ties strained by Dickinson’s estate distribution. Pickens County proved particularly inhospitable to African-Americans well into the twentieth century, and Sumter County is the poorest county in Alabama. Thousands joined the Great Migration out of the state, and it would not be surprising to find in Chicago and Detroit and Cleveland today descendants of Shadrach Dickinson’s enslaved.
Estate File of Shadrach Dickinson (1819), Edgecombe County, North Carolina Wills and Probate Records, 1665-1998, http://www.ancestry.com.
Kettie Wynn — Katie L. Wynn. In the 1950 census of Elm City, Toisnot township, Wilson County: on Main Street, widow Katie Wynn, 55, grocery store sales clerk, and children Marie, 25, Herbert, 23, cab driver, Katie, 22, city school teacher, and Joyce, 14.
The Baltimore Afro-American‘s rather more detailed version of this incident is here. The “negro woman” was Melissa Wilkins. I have not been able to identify her father, who allegedly owned a blind tiger.
Pamela Pridgen Fragoso shared this photo of her father and friends standing in front of the Mill House, a windmill-shaped store that stood at the corner of West Lee and Pine Streets. Alvis T. Pridgen is standing left of the door, shirtless and holding a stick. He was born in 1934 and was about ten years old when this picture was taken. The boy sitting cross-legged directly in front of Pridgen is his pal Bobby Lee Dickerson, known as Chippy or Chipper. Dickerson appears to be younger than Pridgen and was born perhaps in the late 1930s. As an adult, he worked as a policeman in Teaneck, New Jersey. I have not been able to find out anything further about him.
Inez Dickerson Bell, Pauline Farmer White, James Ellis, Deveria Jackson Turner Wing.
James “Casey” Ellis submitted this 1941 photo of himself and three Darden High School friends to the Wilson Daily Times, which ran it on 1 April 2003. Bell, White, and Turner graduated in the Class of 1944.
The eighty-fifth in a series of posts highlighting buildings inEast Wilson Historic District, a national historic district located in Wilson, North Carolina. As originally approved, the district encompasses 858 contributing buildings and two contributing structures in a historically African-American section of Wilson. (A significant number have since been lost.) The district was developed between about 1890 to 1940 and includes notable examples of Queen Anne, Bungalow/American Craftsman, and Shotgun-style architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
As described in the nomination form for the East Wilson Historic District, this house is: “ca. 1925; 1 story; Frederick Dickerson house; triple-A cottage with modified bungalow type porch posts; aluminum sided.”
The house was formerly numbered 308 Finch Street.
In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Dickerson Fredk (c; Almeter) lab h 308 Finch
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 308 Finch Street, Fred Dickerson, 38, W.P.A. project laborer; wife Almeter, 39, tobacco factory laborer; and daughters Clyde, 18, Dora, 16, and Inez, 13. The Dickersons owned their home, valued at $700.
Almeter Edmundson Dickerson died 2 August 1975 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 20 February 1902 to Mack Edmundson and Ferbie(?) Edmundson; was married to Fred Dickerson; and resided at 308 Finch Street.
Fred Dickerson died 20 August 1979 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 4 February 1892 to Charlie Dickerson and Minerva Green; was widowed; and resided at 308 Finch Street.
Fayetteville State Teachers College Catalog 1944-45 (1944).
The 1944 graduating class of Fayetteville State Teachers College included Clyde Joan Dickerson, Nora Allen Mitchell and Helen Elveta Reid, all of whom graduated Darden High School in 1938. In addition, their FSTC classmate Azzalee Mallette of Wilmington, North Carolina, married Alvis A. Hines, Darden ’37, in Wilson on 5 April 1952.
On 11 January 1922, Fred Dickinson [sic], 29, of Nahunta, son of Charles and Manerva Dickinson, married Almeter Edmundson, 23, of Nahunta, daughter of Mack and Harriett Edmundson in Fremont, Wayne County.
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 308 Finch Street, Fred Dickerson, 38, W.P.A. project laborer; wife Almeter, 39, tobacco factory laborer; and daughters Clyde, 18, Dora, 16, and Inez, 13. The Dickersons owned their home, valued at $700.
Almeter Edmundson Dickerson died 2 August 1975 in Wilson. Per her death certificate, she was born 20 February 1902 to Mack Edmundson and Ferbie(?) Edmundson; was married to Fred Dickerson; and resided at 308 Finch Street.
Fred Dickerson died 20 August 1979 in Wilson. Per his death certificate, he was born 4 February 1892 to Charlie Dickerson and Minerva Green; was widowed; and resided at 308 Finch Street.
Photos originally published in History of Wilson County, North Carolina and Its Families(1985).
This 1945 photograph of Winston-Salem Teachers College’s pep squad depicts, front: senior Carl Hargraves, president of squad, Winston-Salem, N.C. and freshman William Stevenson, Winston-Salem; back: senior Ethel Ellerbe, Morven, N.C.; senior Joy Mae Hairston, Winston-Salem; sophomore Effie Dunston, Warrenton, N.C.; junior Marie Darden, Washington, D.C.; sophomore Hattie Russell, Manson, N.C.; and sophomore Dora Dickerson, Wilson, N.C.
Photograph courtesy of http://www.digitalforsyth.org/photos/7388.
