Black Oral HIstories of Beaufort County

Fannie Willis was born in a small rural area just east of Washington, North Carolina, in 1956. She grew up in a large, tight-knit family. One of their common threads was their love of music. At a young age, she sang with the family gospel group, the Harding Gospel Singers. After many years, she would form an extension of that group,  Lady Fannie Willis and the Voices of Hope, which continues today. And although she became a highly acclaimed educator and has given so much back to the community, the spirituality and ministry of music have always been her calling.

Terry Sneed Brown was born in Washington, North Carolina, in 1951. A time when the racial divide in this small rural Eastern North Carolina community was very evident. From being kicked off an all white outdoor tennis court at the age of 8, to being refused service at the counter in Woolworth’s, to having the climb the fire escape steps in the alley at the Turnage Theater just to get to the balcony of the theatre where Blacks had to sit, and being a member of the first integated senior class at Washigton High School after attending P.S. Jones for so many years. But despite these and other challenging encounters during his life, he holds no grudges. “I’m not going to let anyone or anything hold me back from doing what I want to do!” Terry is our latest interview for the Black Oral Histories of Beaufort County project.

Born in the early 40s, first cousins Shirley Tyre and Preddy Stilley come from humble beginnings in rural Beaufort County near Blounts Creek, North Carolina. Their families were sharecroppers, and each worked the fields, primarily corn and tobacco, from six in the morning till six in the evening. It wasn’t an easy life, but there was always food to eat and clothes on their backs, which sometimes were made from scraps of burlap bags. As both shared, “we were poor, but we didn’t know we were poor.” They grew up during the Jim Crow era and experienced racism firsthand on many levels. Their life stories as adults may have taken them on different paths, but their eternal family bond makes these first cousins seem more like sisters.

It has been a pretty amazing life for 95-year-old Emma Howard. Born in 1930 in Belhaven, NC, she has spent her life touching the lives of many and trying to make a difference in the world. As a teacher, she always tried to instill a sense of worth and dignity in her students, always telling them, “You are somebody.” As the first Black female on the Washington City Council, if she saw something that needed fixing, she was the first in line to get it done. She started the Washington, NC, charter of Key Women of America in 1992, a national community service organization founded in 1954 by the Reverend Bertha Nelms Harris. The local charter has worked with the Boys and Girls Club, the Beautfort County Partnership for Children, and the Rainbow House, which was a group home for the mentally ill. At Thanksgiving, they prepare food baskets and distribute them to those in need. At Christmas, they put together gift baskets and deliver them to local nursing homes. I’ve always said, “You need to treat people the way you want to be treated.”

Blanche Gibbs was born in Washington, North Carolina, in 1951. She credits her life experiences as a child for laying the foundation for who she is today. From experiencing segregation firsthand, to her teachers at P.S. Jones, an all Black high school, who prepared her well for the journey ahead, and working for her Uncle Pomp Credel, who owned the Hollywood Inn in Washington’s “Little Harlem.”Pomp was known up and down the East Coast for his cooking. He was also known for his kindness to his fellow man and willingness to always lend a helping hand. Gibbs left Washington after graduating from high school. For the next 45 years, her travels would take her to New York City and then to the West Coast. Eventually, she would return home to Washington. “If you can’t go back home, where can you?”

Born in Martin County, North Carolina, Georgina Smallwood grew up on a farm. Her father was a sharecropper, and she and her siblings helped to work the fields. It wasn’t an easy life, but they always got by. Her father made sure that she and her other sisters would be able to attend college, which they did. Smallwood went on to become a school teacher, where she taught in white schools, where she experienced segregation and racism firsthand. She credits her parents with providing her with the life skills to be able to understand and deal with those situations, then and now.

Born and raised in Beaufort County, North Carolina, James H. Smallwood continues to live on what remains of the ancestral piece of property that his great-grandfather purchased in 1871. As a child, he worked that land with his father and grandfather. He went on to graduate from P.S. Jones High School in 1962 and, in 1965, joined the Army and served time in Okinawa during the Vietnam War. When he returned home, he eventually did construction work, worked for Texas Gulf, and then Werhauser, where he retired. Today, Smallwood is the historian for the P.S. Jones Museum of African American Education.

75-year-old Frederick Hopkins lost his father at the age of three. He credits his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother for their tireless hours in molding him into the man he has become. He played sports and pursued his love of music at the all Black P.S. Jones High School in Washington, North Carolina. He marched in protest in the streets of Washington during the 60’s, served in the military, and would eventually return home to his “true calling” and become a minister. And would he change anything? Only that his father could have lived longer.

At 88 years of age, Florence Lodge has spent a life questioning, and if something needed changing, she was always there.  This meant helping others and trying to make positive changes in the world. She led the charge in Washington, NC, to have 4th Street renamed Martin Luther King Drive. The name of the Washington High School Gym was renamed after a former Black basketball coach because of her efforts. If she ever noticed that no Black people were working somewhere, she made sure to point it out to someone and got results. She worked with the sheriff’s department to keep young Black men from going to prison.  She has also been a member of the NAACP since she was 15.  She says when she dies, she wants her kids to proudly say, “My mother was involved with this, or my mother did that.

Betty Jean Barr Randolph was born in the small rural town of Greelyville, South Carolina, in 1942. As she said, “If you were Black, you were human, but you may not have had the same experiences as others. At a very young age, she saw chain gangs working across the street from her home. She was called the “N” word for nothing more than riding her bike to the store for some candy. Randolph was attending North Carolina Agriculture and Technology (A&T) in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 when four young Black students from the university started a sit-in at the segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter. Refusing to leave after being denied service, they were beaten and arrested. She and many other students participated in the ensuing protest marches. Randolph and her husband, Louis, would go on to call Washington, North Carolina, home, becoming well known for their service to the community.