Happy New Year
Happy New Year ’25!
My deep appreciation to all who supported Black Wide-Awake in 2024 via likes, comments, contributions, corrections, shout-outs, and shares. Hard to believe we’re rolling up on ten years, but the wellspring continues to flow, and I will keep on chronicling.
I made a big life change at the end of the year that, among other positives, will allow me to bring even more focus to my work here and with Lane Street Project. (They think they’ve buried us, but — ha! — we’re seeds.) I don’t truck much with resolutions, but can I ask a few favors? Talk to your elders. Get into your genealogy. Uplift our heroes and history. As far as I know, Black Wide-Awake is the only project of its kind. A blog dedicated solely to the African-American families and history of one mostly rural American county. Tell me what you’d like to know more about.
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Some 2024 Black-Wide Awake stats:
955 posts
269,687 views
164,800 visitors
1,308,270 all-time views
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5 most popular posts:
Man walks eight miles to kill his neighbor
There will not be another damned card played
Large group leaves for the Army
Happy 97th birthday, Donald Lee Woodard Sr.
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Some of my faves (in no order):
Incentives for initiations into the Order of Ethiopians
Lane Street Project: “my heart cries for all”
Where we lived: tenant farmhouse
Dr. Ward visits relatives and friends in Wilson
Happy New Year ’24!
We’ve got 365 new days to make things happen, folks. In memory and honor of the 4,224 — upward and onward!
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Some 2023 Black-Wide Awake stats:
889 posts (an increase of 13% from 2022)
220,199 views (a 5% increase)
102,980 visitors (an 18% increase)
1,037,638 all-time views
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5 most popular posts:
wide-a-wa-ake-love-the-wilson-county-roots-of-tupac-shakur (originally posted 2018)
the-dardens-buy-another-lot-on-pender-street
the-ellis-familys-community-of-enslaved-people (originally posted 2019)
a-road-trip-to-an-edgecombe-county-historical-marker-and-a-familiar-face
william-barnes-plantation (originally posted in 2017)
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Some of my faves (in no order):
snaps-no-101-ella-goff-ward-and-fannie-ward-dixon
irene-barron-wilsons-rosa-parks
cool-off-courtesy-of-darden-sons
lane-street-project-vick-cemetery-revealed
gatseys-children-a-register-of-births-of-enslaved-children-part-1-2
lane-street-project-vick-cemetery-past-present-future
lane-street-project-pulling-back-the-curtain-at-city-hall-annotated
recommended-reading-no-15-ed-mitchells-barbeque
lane-street-project-the-reconsecration-part-1
lane-street-project-wral-tv-reports
standing-in-the-gap-for-the-ancestors-sankofa-and-the-why-of-black-wide-awake-2