November 2021 – Page 3 – Black Wide-Awake (2024)

Wilson Daily Times, 14 November 1911.

One of only two (state-sponsored) hangings in Wilson County was that of Jim Robbins, an enslaved man accused of murdering his master Jacob Robbins in 1858.

The headstones of Della Hines Barnes and Dave Barnes, Odd Fellows Cemetery, September 2021.

1. Join a clean-up.
2. Bring a friend.
3. Amplify our message.
4. Follow Lane Street Project on Instagram or Facebook.
5. Drop off coffee or hot chocolate or water for volunteers working at a clean-up.
6. Bring doughnuts or other snacks to a clean-up.
7. Donate money [Cashapp $blackwideawake] for supplies, tools, equipment, and professional services.
8. Donate supplies, tools, equipment, and professional services.
9. Bring a group of your church members to a clean-up.
10. Visit and pay your respects.
11. Leave flowers.
12. Fill a bag with trash or debris.
13. Cut 25 wisteria vines.
14. Photograph a headstone and record its information.
15. Record a headstone’s GPS location.
16. Clear a section of fence.
17. Tag us: #lanestreetproject
18. Bring your fraternity or sorority members to a clean-up.
19. Interview an elder about their memories of the cemeteries.
20. Pay for a roll-off bin for a clean-up day.
21. Bring your classmates to a clean-up.
22. Wear a mask.
23. Bring your alumni group to a clean-up.
24. “Adopt” a grave or family plot, and keep it clean and neat.
25. Bring your co-workers to a clean-up.
26. Pour libations.
27. Find out if you have people buried here.
28. Speak truth to power.
29. Bring your motorcycle club to a clean-up.
30. Pray for the thousands buried in Odd Fellows, Vick, and Rountree Cemeteries.
31. Honor your ancestors.
32. Bring your fellow veterans to a clean-up. (There are many buried here.)
33. Ask your councilperson to support efforts to reclaim Odd Fellows Cemetery.
34. Buy Lane Street Project merchandise. The proceeds will benefit clean-up work.
35. Bring your fellow Masons or Eastern Stars to a clean-up.
36. Help us install fence art.
37. Ask your councilperson to support efforts to redress harm done to Vick Cemetery.
38. Ask us what we need.
39. Bring your Scout troop or other youth group to a clean-up.
40. Read about the histories of Wilson’s African-American cemeteries in Black Wide-Awake.
41. Observe safety rules when working a clean-up.
42. Watch your step.
43. STOP DUMPING.
44. Clean headstones with water and a soft-bristled brush ONLY. No detergent. No soap.
45. Ride by every once in a while and let us know if anything needs to be taken care of.
46. Bring your social club to a clean-up.
47. Teach your children and students about local African-American history.
48. Be careful not to lean on headstones. Some are unstable, and if they fall you will be hurt.
49. Share your thoughts about the futures of the cemeteries.
50. Come again.

From 1945 edition of The Ram, the yearbook of Winston-Salem State Teachers College [now University], senior Charles E. Branford, Darden ’41:

The one hundred thirty-eighth in a series of posts highlighting buildings in East 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.

In the nomination form for the East Wilson Historic District, this address is described as a vacant lot. It is currently a garden area for the inhabitants of 311 North Pender.

Per Robert C. Bainbridge and Kate Ohno inWilson, North Carolina: Historic Buildings Survey(1980), source of the photo above: “This cottage dates between 1880 and 1900. Built in an L-plan, the front cross gable boasts double arched windows. The shed roof porch is supported by turned columns.”

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309 North Pender as drawn in the 1922 Sanborn fire insurance map. The narrow street running alongside the house (just visible in the photo above) was once known as “Short Viola” Street. It is now an alley.

In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Smith Mattie (c) lndrs h 309 Pender

In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Bell Chas (c; Nina) lab h 309 Pender

In the 1930 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 309 Pender, rented for $16/month, Charlie Bell, 48, truck driver; wife Nina, 21; sons Dillon, 4, and Benson, 1; and lodger Rosa Lee White, 22.

In the 1940 census of Wilson, Wilson County: at 309 Pender, rented for $12/month, Alice Artis, 56; daughter Pauline Henderson, 39; and children Bessie L., 23, Alice, 20, Joyce, 18, Mildred, 16, Doris, 10, and Robert, 4.

In the 1941 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Cooper Wm (c; Nellie, 2) lab h 309 Pender

Nellie McLeod Cooper died 2 February 1947 in Wilson, Wilson County. Per her death certificate, she was 46 years old; was born in Robeson County, N.C.; lived at 309 North Pender; was married to Willie Cooper; and worked as common laborer at a tobacco factory.

Josephus Daniels’ News & Observer loved a good laugh at the expense of Black folk, even the ones back home in Wilson. Here, a “special” report of the antics of Wesley Rogers at the Mason Hotel one Saturday night. Rogers, a swell and a dandy, had taken offense at remarks made by another patron and had thrown the man out the door. Rogers’ alleged performance in Mayor’s court was deemed worthy of several column inches of print.

News and Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 11 November 1908.

• Wesley Rogers — I had assumed this to be John Wesley Rogers, but the facts do not fit. Rogers owned several businesses over the course of his life, but not a clothes cleaning establishment, and he was in 1908 a married man with children who was not likely to have been lodging at a hotel.
• “the Mason Hotel, a joint on the east side of the railroad where the negroes do congregate” — I do not know of a Mason Hotel on Nash Street. The description sounds rather like the Orange Hotel (whose owner, Samuel H. Vick, was a well-known Mason), a boarding house that was cited often for gambling and prostitution.

Wilson’s emergence as a leading tobacco market town drew hundreds of African-American migrants in the decades after the 1890s. Many left family behind in their home counties, perhaps never to be seen again. Others maintained ties the best way they could.

Sarah Henderson Jacobs Silver and her husband Jesse A. Jacobs Jr. left Dudley, in southern Wayne County, North Carolina, around 1905. They came to Wilson presumably for better opportunities off the farm. Each remained firmly linked, however, to parents and children and siblings back in Wayne County as well as those who had joined the Great Migration north. This post is the seventh in a series of excerpts from documents and interviews with my grandmotherHattie Henderson Ricks (1910-2001), Jesse and Sarah’s adoptive daughter (and Sarah’s great-niece), revealing the ways her Wilson family stayed connected to their far-flung kin. (Or didn’t.)

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As discussed here, after Jesse A. Jacobs Jr.’s death, Sarah Henderson Jacobs married Rev. Joseph C. Silver. Sarah died just a few years later, and in 1943 Rev. Silver married Martha C. Hawkins Henderson Aldridge.

Shortly after Rev. Silver’s death in January 1958, his widow Martha sent my grandmotherHattie Henderson Ricks(who had formerly been known as Hattie Jacobs) a letter addressed to her workplace, the Eastern North Carolina Sanatorium.Martha Silver mentioned their mutual family connections and offered advice on reclaiming household furnishings that Sarah Silver had brought to the marriage.

P.O. Box 193 Nashville

N.C. c/o Brake

Feb. 2, 1958

Dear Hattie –

You heard of Rev. Silver’s death Jan. 7^th although I didn’t notify you as I was sick and still is sick but not confine to bed. Sarah had some things in the home. A bed which I am sure you wouldn’t care for and a folding single bed which I am going to get but my main reason for writing you she has an oak dresser and washstand that Rev. Silver told me you wanted and said he told you you could get it if you would send for it so it is still there and it is good material if you want it. Amos has already seen a second hand furniture man about buying it. The Silver’s will “skin a flea for his hide and tallow.” The Aldridges holds a very warm place in my heart and always will. If you wish to do so you may write to Rev. Amos Silver Route 3 Box 82 Enfield and ask him if your mother Sarah’s furniture is still there. There is also a carpet on the floor in the living room you need not mention my name. I am very fond of Johnnie Aldridge of Dudly. Come to see me whenever you can I think you might get with Reka at Fremont some times, she and Luke come to Enfield to see me occasionally I am going to write Reka next week. I married your great uncle Rev Joseph Aldridge write me

Your friend and great aunt by marriage.

M.C. (Aldridge) Silver

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Martha Silver, seated second from right, with her husband Joseph’s children Daniel W. Aldridge, Allen Aldridge, and Mary Aldridge Sawyer, seated, and William J.B. Aldridge, Milford Aldridge, Lillie Aldridge Holt, George M. Aldridge, and Joseph L. Aldridge. Occasion unknown, but well after Joseph Aldridge’s death in 1934.

Though Martha Silver was not a Wilson native, she and her second husband Joseph Aldridge (my grandmother’s great-uncle, Johnnie Aldridge was her uncle) were married in Wilson. Rev. Silver (who would become Martha’s third husband) performed the marriage ceremony on 16 December 1925. C.E. Artis applied for the license, and William A. Mitchner, Hattie Tate, and Callie Barnes were witnesses. I have seen no evidence that either Martha or Joseph lived in Wilson, and I do not know why they chose to be married there. C.E. Artis was Joseph Aldridge’s nephew, but there are no obvious relationships between either bride or groom and Dr. Mitchner, Hattie Tate (she was Artis’ next-door neighbor — was she simply a stand-in?), or Callie Barnes (who was a close neighbor of my grandmother on Elba Street).

Letter and copy of photo in personal collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Wilson Daily Times, 14 March 1919.

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• Elton Thomas, son of Charlie and Sarah Best Thomas
• David Barnes, son of Dave and Della Hines Barnes
• Moses Parker
• Charlie Austen — Charles Alston, son of James and Martha Alston
• Burley Brooks, son of William H. and Hattie Brooks
• William Shaw — William Dorsey Shaw, son of John and Ella Shaw
• Julius Rountree, son of Jack and Lucy Rountree
• Frank Scott — James Franklin Scott, son of Rev. John H. and Mary J. Scott
• John Battle — John Parker Battle, son of Parker and Ella Burston Battle

My grandmother’s sons — Lucian J. Henderson, Jesse A. Henderson, and Rederick C. Henderson — served in the United States armed forces in the decade after World War II.

My uncle Lucian was first. He qualified as an infantry rifleman after basic training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, then shipped for Japan.

From Yokohama, he sent his mama in Wilson this hand-painted silk handkerchief.

I thank Private Henderson, Private Henderson, and Airman Henderson for their service.

From the personal collection of Lisa Y. Henderson.

Well. This was certainly a surprise.

I don’t know whom to thank for either nomination or selection, so I’ll express my gratitude to every one of you for your beautiful support of Black Wide-Awake and, lately, the Lane Street Project.

The Real MVPs, of course, were Mary C. Euell and Samuel H. Vick and Marie Everett and MadisonBen Mincey and my grandmother and yours. I’m just here to shine the light.

Supplement, Wilson Times, 9 November 2021.

Divided by East Nash Street, Pettigrew Street is two blocks long. By the 1920s, the two halves were starkly segregated, with African-Americans at the north end and whites at the south. (The exception on the south end was the Oak City Pressing Club, a laundry service.)

Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory, 1930.

Today, North Pettigrew Street is abandoned, dotted with the husks of commercial buildings.

Only one house, at 210, stands. Originally a two-room duplex, the house is vacant despite a recent renovation (in which one of the front doors was removed.)

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In the 1928 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Smith Chas (c; Geneva) lab h 210 N Pettigrew

In the 1930 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Daniel Wm (c) firemn h 210 N Pettigrew

In the 1941 Hill’s Wilson, N.C., city directory: Faison Millard (c; Lina) lab h 210 N Pettigrew

In 1942, Millard Harry Faison registered for the World War II draft in Wilson County. Per his registration card, Faison was born 11 September 1897 in Duplin County, N.C.; lived at 210 Pettigrew Street; his contact was H.J. Faison, Faison, N.C.; and he worked under a contractor’s contract at Marine Barracks, New River, Onslow County, N.C.

Unity Peace Mission, a non-denominational church headed by W.E. Willoughby, was active inWilson in the 1940s. Wilson Daily Times, 12 January 1943.

Wilson Daily Times, 28 October 1944.

Wilson Daily Times, 30 January 1947.

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, November 2021.