Wilson’s Art Deco bus station stood from 1938 to the mid-1990s.
In 1943, a dozen years before Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks’ celebrated acts of resistance, at least four young African-American men and women refused to move to the back of Wilson buses. Read again of their direct challenges to Jim Crow and discrimination and lift up their memory.
News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 7 April 1943.
Raleigh’s major newspaper followed up on the sentence levied on James Parker, who refused to move to the back of a Wilson bus twelve years before Rosa Parks. All things considered, Parker’s punishment was surprisingly light — perhaps, none yet perceived a real threat to the Jim Crow system.
Add two more names to the list of people in Wilson who defied Jim Crow laws confining them to the back of the bus in 1943 — years before Rosa Parks sat down in Montgomery.
In February 1943, Wilson siblings William and Christine Hooks boarded a bus for Portsmouth, Virginia. Their friend Asilee Myers had gone to the bus station to see them off. The driver ordered William Hooks to move to the back of the bus. Hooks refused, and the bus driver ejected him. In response, the Hookses and Myers allegedly then threw gravel at the bus. The driver stopped, hopped out, and confronted William Hooks. A policeman arrived and, according to this account, Hooks jumped him before he could open his mouth good and a “young riot” broke out. The officer and the bus driver finally subdued Hooks with a black jack, and he, his sister, and their friend were arrested and charged with being drunk and disorderly and interfering with a police officer. [Personal note: I don’t believe the Hookses were intoxicated. Drunk and disorderly charges were means of criminalizing refusals to comply with unjust laws.]
All were convicted. William Hooks received a total of 36 months “on the road.” Christine Hooks got 10 months, and Asilee Myers, 30 days. I have not been able to determine the outcomes of their appeals.
Wilson Daily Times, 9 February 1943.
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In the 1930 census of Speights Bridge township, Greene County, N.C.: farmer Charlie Hooks, 45; [second] wife Lossie, 25; children Lewis, 21, James, 19, Charlie, 17, William, x, and Christine, 9; and sisters-in-law Gather, 29, and Ethel, 20.
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: widow Lossie Hooks, 34, cook; sister Gether Jones, 38, stemmer; children Christine, 18, cook, and William Hooks, 21, plumber; lodger Frank Allen, 20, truck driver; and daughter Dorothy G. Hooks, 9.
In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 116 Ashe Street, Asilee Myers, 27, nurse, born in South Carolina, and Joe Battle, 30, laborer.
In the 1950 census of Portsmouth, Virginia: Lossie Hooks, 43, domestic; daughter Christine, 28, domestic; daughters Betty Jean, 8, and Dorothy Gray, 10; and lodger Ossie Spruell, 54, widow.
William Hooks died in May 1962 in Wilson. Per his obituary, published in Wilson Daily Times on xx May 1962, he lived at 139 Narroway Street and was survived by wife Essie Mae Hooks; daughters Peggie Ann and Dorothy Mae Hooks; son William Hooks Jr.; stepmother Lossie Hooks of Portsmouth, Virginia; sister Christine Hooks of Portsmouth; brothers Charlie E. Hooks of Wilson, James Lewis Hooks of Pinetops, N.C., and John B. Hooks of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Wilson Daily Times, 12 December 1921.
In 1921, Wilson County paid expenditures for its white and “colored” schools at a ratio of 16:1. Note not only the overall money spent, but what it was spent for. (Or not.) There were no African-American high schools anywhere in the county — hence, no salaries paid. No assets used for African-American students were insured, and no transportation was provided. No furniture, blackboards, desks, stoves, new houses, sites, or equipment accrued to Black students. The County did pay out $67.50 in rent, however, as many rural schools did not have their own buildings.
1919. World War I had ended. Wilson planned Memorial Day Exercises and a Home Celebration for “the boys who answered their country’s call.” Or most of them, anyway.
The Daily Times published this clarification days before the festivities. Bottom line: Black soldiers were not invited. The mayor had designated “July 4th as the day on which the colored people of Wilson County will honor the returned heroes of their race ….” The good white businessmen of the town had agreed to throw a little money at the later event, but “… there will be no provision made for the returned colored soldiers in [the] parade or barbecue dinner.”
Wilson Daily Times, 10 May 1919.
Wilson Times, 9 June 1899.
Wilson Daily Times, 23 October 1919.
George A. Barfoot & Company, the busy Wilson realtors, offered nine investment properties for sale in October 1919 — six were designated “for colored,” three “for white.”
I was looking for an African-American family in the Evansdale area when I ran across this notation in the 1910 census of Stantonsburg township. A closer look revealed that enumerator R.B. Barnes divided Enumeration District 110 into four sections — the white residents of the town of Stantonsburg, the black residents of the town of Stantonsburg, the black residents (who made up the majority) of the rest of the township, and finally the rest of the white residents.
No other township is enumerated this way and, in fact, I’ve never seen this imposed segregation in any other census record anywhere.
In an op-ed piece, the Daily Times offers tips for successfully maintaining segregation.
Wilson Daily Times, 24 April 1950.
As Wilson expanded west past Grabneck and other former African-American sections, deeds for lots and houses began to imbed restrictive covenants that, among other limitations, prohibited Black residents.
The language was standard:
(a) No part of said premises may be conveyed unto any person of African descent, nor any part thereof be occupied by any person of African descent other than such persons in the domestic employment of the owner. [In others words, onsite maids, cooks, yardmen, and drivers were fine.]
As shown in the referenced plat map below, this sale was for a large lot (#18) on Anderson Street between Moye Avenue and West End Avenue.
Plat Book 4, page 74, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.