'continuum of change' historical figures

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First in two states

One of the first Black women to practice medicine in the states of North and South Carolina was Dr. Lucy Hughes Brown, who practiced in Wilmington, North Carolina, from 1894-1896. She was also the first woman to practice in Charleston, South Carolina, and while there co-founded the Cannon Street Hospital and Training School for Nurses. It operated from 1897 to 1959. The founders opened the hospital to serve the Black community in the Jim Crow South.

The Cannon Street school was the first hospital training school for nurses in the state of South Carolina. Dr. Brown taught Obstetrical Nursing and Care of Infants. She also helped to edit South Carolina's first Black medical periodical, the Hospital Herald, which was founded in 1898.

Noteworthy: Dr. Brown attended the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia, one of the earliest colleges in the world to offer medical degrees to women.

Reference materials: Gertrude Ramsey, "Pioneer Women Doctors Early Found Favor in N.C." Asheville Citizen-Times; Statesville Record and Landmark, September 24, 1897; "Prominent Colored Woman died Mon" The Charlotte News, June 27, 1911; Walking the Color Line: Alonzo Mcclennan, the "Hospital Herald," and Segregated Medicine in Turn-of-the-Twentieth-Century Charleston, South Carolina; The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Oct., 2003, Vol. 104, No. 4.

Politician | Religious leader

A leader in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Tarboro native John C. Dancy was nominated twice as Collector of Customs for the port of Wilmington. President Benjamin Harrison nominated Dancy in 1891, and President William McKinley did so in 1897. In that role, Dancy made more money than most top state officials. That fact did not always sit well many white citizens and some Black citizens.

At the time of the massacre in 1898 Dancy's name was not on the banishment list, likely because he was a federal official. Additionally, Dancy and a group of prominent Black men confronted Alexander Manly about the editorial that sparked so much outrage. They wanted him to "suspend" the newspaper to quell the bitterness that was growing in the city. Dancy was not in Wilmington during the time of violence, though his family was. They were able to get out of town and join him in Tarboro. Dancy was appointed Register of Deeds for the District of Columbia by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902.

Noteworthy: On November 12, Dancy wrote a letter that was printed in the Wilmington Morning Star under the front-page headline "Dancy's Council to Negroes," asking Black residents to "do nothing that will in the slightest degree inflame new passions or revive the old ones."

Reference materials: "We Have Taken A City," H. Leon Prather, Sr.; 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report, 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Committee; "Wilmington's Lie," David Zucchino

Abolitionist | Union Spy | State Senator

Abraham Galloway escaped enslavement in Wilmington in 1857 in the cargo hold of a boat headed to Philadelphia and eventually reached Canada, where he began working in the abolitionist movement and shortly after as a Union spy. Galloway was back in North Carolina in 1863 during the Civil War to recruit Black men for the Union cause.

After he stopped recruiting for the Union, Galloway began fighting for voting rights and political equality. That included leading a delegation to the White House in 1864. Four years later, Galloway was nominated to run for the N.C. Senate in the first election that Black Americans were eligible to hold a state office. He died at 33 years old, just six months after the birth of his second son, Abraham Jr.

Noteworthy: In 1861, Galloway spent roughly 15 weeks in Haiti to work on the recruitment efforts for a John Brown-type military invasion in the American South.

Reference materials: "The Fire of Freedom: Abraham Galloway and the Slaves' Civil War" by David S Cecelski; North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources; The Christian Recorder.

Mason | Writer

When he was 24 years old, William Benjamin Gould and seven others enslaved in Wilmington, N.C. made a daring escape on a rainy September night in 1862. The eight men rowed 28 nautical miles down the Cape Fear River, eluding Confederate sentinels until they reached a U.S. Navy vessel. By the time Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Gould had been serving on the U.S.S. Cambridge for more than three months.

In Wilmington, Gould was a plasterer and mason, and worked in places like the Bellamy Mansion where his initials are inscribed in the plaster. His craftsmanship from the Bellamy Mansion was a preview of the career he would build as a contractor in Massachusetts. He and his wife had eight children, six of which served in the military.

Noteworthy: Gould, who had defied N.C. law to learn to read and write, kept a diary of his Civil War service. He also sent written contributions to The Anglo-African, a Black abolitionist newspaper that published articles about the lives of Black sailors and soldiers during the war.

Reference materials: Boston Globe; Star News; "Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor," William B. Gould IV.

Educator

Longtime Wilmington educator Mary Washington Howe worked at Williston Grammar School starting in 1874 and spent 22 years as the principal. She was the first woman to lead a school in Wilmington. Her father, respected freedman Alfred Augustus Howe, was a builder who sent her to study at the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia.

Howe laid the foundation for future Black educators in Wilmington and at Williston. An elementary school was named in her honor in 1963.

Noteworthy: Mary Washington Howe was part of the 1893 Emancipation Proclamation celebrations in Wilmington. This was the first time women were included in the ceremonies and she read the proclamation in front of a crowd.

Reference materials: "Strength through Struggle," William M. Reaves; Wilmington Star News; oral history from Cynthia Brown, descendant of Alfred Augustus Howe.

Publisher | Entrepreneur

As owner and publisher of The Daily Record, Alexander Lightfoot Manly wrote articles that focused on Black empowerment and development. It was said to be the state's only daily African-American newspaper at the time. Manly wrote an editorial in August of 1898 to rebut a speech by a Georgia woman that was printed in the Wilmington Messenger that suggested white men "lynch, a thousand times a week, if necessary," to protect white women from Black "rapists." After his response was printed, The Daily Record was burned to the ground and Manly was banished from the city of Wilmington.

Manly's wife, Carrie, wrote letters to the couple's sons in 1954 saying the editorial "turned Southern cities from N.C. to Ala. upside down." Like many others who were banished from the Port City, Manly never moved back. He died in 1944 in Pennsylvania.

Noteworthy: Alexander Manly's white paternal grandfather was former North Carolina Governor Charles Manly, who served from 1849-1851.

Reference materials: "We Have Taken A City," H. Leon Prather, Sr.; "Wilmington's Lie," David Zucchino; 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report, 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Committee.

Entrepreneur | Property owner

Thomas C. Miller "worked himself up from slavery to become a financial giant who regularly bought and sold land, loaned money, and entered into mortgages with both blacks and whites." He was the wealthiest Black man in Wilmington and owned businesses and property. His presence and wealth seemed "undesirable to most whites."

During the massacre of 1898, Miller was one of the men on the banishment list and was pulled from his home in front of his daughter. As he was escorted to the train, while a crowd cheered and hurled racial epithets at him. He was not allowed to return to the city and settled in Virginia.

Noteworthy: Miller wrote to John D. Taylor, clerk of Superior Court in 1902, saying "I have been treated not like [a] human but worse than a dog and someday the Lord will punish them that punished me without a Cause."

Reference materials: 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report; "We Have Taken A City," H. Leon Prather, Sr.; "Wilmington's Lie," David Zucchino; “Strength through Struggle,” William M. Reaves.

Lawyer | Judge

Armond Wendell Scott had a small, growing practice in Wilmington in 1898 before the massacre. A native of Wilmington, Scott was from large family that operated a grocery store on Walnut Street. On November 9, 1898, Scott was one of a "Committee of Colored Citizens" summoned by 25 white men to hear their demands, a list referred to as the "White Declaration of Independence." One demand was that Alexander Manly, publisher of The Daily Record, be banished.

Scott was instructed to deliver a reply on behalf of the Black men to the home of Alfred Moore Waddell by 7:30 the following morning. The men wrote a reply, but Scott put it in the mail rather than delivering it to Waddell's home because it would not have been safe for him to do so. Scott, along with several others, were led to the train and banished from the city. After working odd jobs in New York and Washington, D.C., Scott returned to law and was eventually able to establish a successful practice.

Noteworthy: In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Scott to the D.C. municipal court, the president's first Black judicial appointment.

Reference materials: "Wilmington's Lie," David Zucchino; "We Have Taken a City," H. Leon Prather; 1897 Wilmington City directory.

Healer

The first known Black physician to practice in North Carolina*, Dr. James Francis Shober worked to serve the needs of Wilmington's Black community in the 1880s. The November 1884 edition of Lincoln University's alumni magazine says that Dr. Shober had a "flourishing" practice, which he opened in 1878 at his home on Princess Street. He earned his medical degree from the Howard University School of Medicine.

For most of his career, Dr. Shober was the only Black physician in Wilmington, which at the time was the most populous city in North Carolina. He married Anna Maria Taylor, daughter of prominent Black builder Henry Taylor, in 1881 and the couple two daughters.

Noteworthy: According to Thomas J. Ward's "Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South," Dr. Shober received early education from the Moravians, who defied North Carolina law by teaching slaves to read and write.

Reference materials: Star News; North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources; North Carolina State Historical Marker; The Alumni Magazine, Lincoln University, November 1884; "Black Physicians in the Jim Crow South," by Thomas J. Ward.

* From Dr. Hubert A. Eaton's "Every Man Should Try" about Dr. Shober's practice: "The North Carolina Board of Medical Examiners was established in 1859. It was not until 1885, however, when the first meaningful law was passed regulating those who could lawfully engage in the practice of medicine. The state legislature modified this law a few days after it was passed to exempt those physicians who had a diploma from a regular medical college prior to 1 January 1880. Having graduated from Howard University in March 1878, Dr. Shober was exempt from the examination to obtain a license. For this reason his name does not appear in the records of Board of Medical Examiners."