principal

Mack D. Coley, Colored Graded School principal.

When Henry C. Lassiter and Turner G. Williamson graduated Lincoln University in June 1895, their classmates included Mack Daniel Coley. Coley was born in 1864 in northern Wayne County. He graduated from Hampton Institute’s preparatory division in 1890.

Excerpt from Twenty-Two Years’ Work, see below.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree at Lincoln, he returned to North Carolina.

New York Times, 5 June 1895.

M.D. Coley’s remarkable career as educator (which included a stint as principal of Wilson Colored Graded School circa 1920-21) and lawyer is chronicled in Arthur Bunyan Caldwell’s History of the American Negro and His Institutions (1921):

Coley did not helm the Graded School for long. He and his family are listed in the 1920 census of the Town of Mount Olive, Wayne County, and he may have boarded alone in Wilson during his short tenure. He died in Mount Olive in 1950.

Twenty-Two Years’ Work of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute at Hampton, Virginia (Records of Negro and Indian Graduates and Ex-Students with historical and personal sketches and testimony on important race questions from within and without, to which are added, by courtesy Messrs Putnam’s Sons, N.Y., some of the Songs of the Races gathered in the School (Hampton Normal School Press, 1893).

M.D. Williams submits his dissertation.

After more than a decade as teacher, principal, and school administrator in Wilson, Malcolm D. Williams entered the doctoral program at Columbia University’s Teacher College. His dissertation, “A Suggested Plan to Improve Teaching and Learning in the Negro Schools Located in Wilson, North Carolina, Through Developing a Better Parent and Teacher Common Understanding of More Effective Concepts of Teaching and Learning,” was submitted in 1951.

Most interesting to me, at least initially, is Williams’ lengthy citation to a 1939 Study of Negro Education in Wilson prepared by Atlantic Christian College unit of the North Carolina Unit of Education and Race and sponsored by the University of North Carolina, Duke University, and the North Carolina Department of Education. (Where can I possibly find this document?)

The study asserts that the first school for African-Americans was started in 1869 at Mount Zion Methodist Church [Saint John A.M.E. Zion?], which stood “in the corner of a cemetery near the Stantonsburg highway.” (The predecessor cemetery to Oakdale Cemetery, which was established by the Town of Wilson very close by.) In 1870, Wilson established its first public school for Black children. It operated for four months a year and had no grades until 1880. The study skips to 1920, the year Wilson established a Black high school — only three years after the first in the entire state. (Actually, Wilson Colored High School, later C.H. Darden, did not open until 1923.) 

Thanks to J. Robert Boykin III for bringing this document to my attention.

Teachers assigned to Negro schools.

Wilson Daily Times, 31 August 1949.

Just before the school year began, the Daily Times published the names of African-American teachers at Wilson County’s Black county schools — Williamson High School, Williamson Elementary, Rocky Branch, Jones Hill, New Vester, Sims, Farmers, Howards, Holdens, Saratoga, Bynums, Wilbanks, Yelverton, Stantonsburg, Evansdale, Ruffin, Lofton, Minshew, Brooks, Lucama, and Calvin Level. 

Principal’s reports: Williamson High School, 1941.

High school principals were required to file annual reports with the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction. In 1941, Robert E. Lee filed this report for newly opened Williamson High School.

The school year was only 120 days long and ran from 21 January 1941 to 31 May 1941. (Compare Elm City Colored School, which ran from February to June. Darden, on the other hand, had a 180-day school year.) Three teachers taught at Williamson — two women and one man. Astonishingly, these three taught 114 children — 39 boys and 75 girls — in three grades. (The school had no 11th or 12th grades.) Six-room Williamson Colored School housed all grades in one building. It had no restrooms, principal’s office, library, or auditorium. It did have a lunchroom run by the home economics department.

The high school offered classes in English, spelling, general mathematics, citizenship, American history, world history, geography, general science, and biology.

Classes met at 9:00, 9:48, 10:45, 11:27, 1:48 and 2:38. Lunch was at noon. R.E. Lee taught science, geography and history. J.P. Brown taught English, spelling and citizenship. C.J. Nicholson taught math, English and spelling.

All the teachers were college graduates. Each was in his or her first year teaching at Williamson.

The school had no laboratories or maps. It published a newspaper, The Oracle, and sponsored an English Club. Lee made this note: “Our Agriculture, Home Economics and guidance programs will begin in September, 1941, as steps are already being taken to put them into effect.”

High School Principals’ Annual Reports, 1940-1941, Wayne County to Wilson County; North Carolina Digital Collection, digital.ncdcr.gov.

Principal’s report: Elm City Colored School, 1941.

High school principals were required to file annual reports with the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction. In 1941, Robert A. Johnson filed this report for Elm City Colored School for the preceding school year.

The school year was only 120 days and ran from 10 February 1941 to 28 June 1941. Seven teachers taught at Elm City — two men and five women. They taught 164 children — 48 boys and 116 girls. Elm City Colored School housed all grades in one building. It had no restrooms, lunchroom or auditorium. It had no librarian, but it did have a library room.

The high school offered classes in English, general mathematics, geometry, algebra, citizenship, American history, world history, sociology, general science, biology, home economics, and French.

Classes met at 8:45, 9:35, 10:30, 11:30, 1:00 and 2:00. Odelle Whitehead Barnes taught English and French; Clara G. Cooke taught history and English; Mabel Brewington taught home economics and history; Earl C. Burnett taught science and math; and Robert A. Johnson taught math and tended the library on Fridays.

All the teachers were college graduates. Barnes had the most tenure at Elm City, with 8 years; Brewington and Burnett were newcomers.

The school had no laboratories or maps. It published a newspaper, The Elm City Journal; had both girls’ and boys’ glee clubs; a 4-H Club; and an English Club. Elm City Colored School graduated fourteen in the Class of 1941 — William Bynum, Volious Harris, Willie R. Mitchell, Mary Armstrong, Minnie E. Armstrong, Nelia Brown, Essie Bynum, Alice Ellis, Bessie Lancaster, Clara Lancaster, Eva Lindsey, Ada B. McKinnon, Georgia Toliver, and Marie Wynn.

High School Principals’ Annual Reports, 1940-1941, Wayne County to Wilson County, North Carolina Digital Collection, digital.ncdcr.gov.

Efficient, painstaking and polite superintendent marries.

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Wilson Mirror, 19 November 1890.

Frank Oscar Blount married Nettie Amanda Steward in Philadelphia in 1890.

Nettie S. Blount of 926 Lombard Street, aged about 30, died 2 April 1892 in Philadelphia. She was buried in Philadelphia’s Lebanon Cemetery.

The sins of the husband.

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Pittsburgh Courier, 1 March 1930.

After abruptly withdrawing their appeals, J.D. Reid and H.S. Stanback entered the state prison at Raleigh to begin serving five-year sentences for convictions for receiving deposits at Commercial Bank, knowing the institution was insolvent. In so doing, they avoided prosecution on charges of forgery and embezzlement. They also opened a path for Reid’s wife, Eleanor P. Reid, to retain her position as principal of the Colored Graded School.

Studio shots, no. 67: Robert A. Johnson.

Robert A. Johnson served 30 years as the first African-American high school principal in the Elm City community. “Under his leadership, not only did Frederick Douglass [High School] receive high academic ratings, its superiority in co-curricular areas received state-wide recognition, particularly its band and basketball teams.”

A native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Johnson received a B.A. from Ohio State University and, later a master’s degree from New York University.

——

Robert A. Johnson, 34, married Grace A. McNeil, 27, on 3 June 1939 in Forsyth County, North Carolina.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 206 Reid Street, shoe shop owner James Mack, 41; wife Beualah, 40, born in Salisbury; and Robert Johnson, 34, teacher in Wilson County school, born in Winston-Salem.

In 1940, Robert Arthur Johnson registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, he was born 19 October 1905 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; his contact was father William Johnson, 806 Stadium Drive, Winston-Salem; and his employer was Elm City Board of Trustees.

Robert Arthur Johnson died 14 March 1966 of a heart attack at Frederick Douglass High School, Elm City. Per his death certificate, he was born 19 October 1905 in Winston-Salem to William Johnson and Amie Williams; was married to Grace Johnson; and was employed as a principal by Wilson County Schools.

Text adapted from article in and photo courtesy of History of Wilson County, North Carolina (1985).