Slave pass and marriage acknowledgement from A. Greer to John Neely allowing the marriage of one of his male slaves to one of Neely’s female slaves, on the condition that they do not let the marriage interfere with their work.
Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
Potts Family, J. Walter, Papers. J. Murrey Atkins Library Special Collections Department, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, N.C.
I’m closing out Women’s History month with a post about someone I actually knew, my grandmother’s best friend, Jean Moore Fasse.
Mrs. Fasse was born in Lillington, North Carolina, in 1908 and was raised on a Harnett County farm. She worked as a nanny while attending high school and enrolled at Fayetteville State Teachers College (now Fayetteville State University). That’s where she and my grandmother met. They both earned teaching degrees. My grandmother accepted a position at a one-room school in rural Harnett County. Mrs. Fasse’s first teaching job was in a one-room school in Goldsboro, NC. My grandmother spent her career in education, but her friend decided teaching was not her calling.
In 1944, Mrs. Fasse joined the American Red Cross and was sent to Washington, D.C., for training. After training, she was stationed along the Ledo Road, a supply lifeline from India to China, built by the U.S. Army in World War II. She spent time in Calcutta, India and Burma. After the war, Mrs. Fasse returned to the States, but traveling was in her blood by then.
She signed up for the U.S. Special Services and was trained to run recreation clubs in Europe. She spent many years working in Germany, until she married in 1963. She remained in Europe until 1990.
Mrs. Fasse’s visits were always exciting. She was vivacious, quick-witted and sophisticated. And she always had lots of stories to tell. As a child who was curious by nature, she made me want to see the world myself.
The last time I saw Mrs. Fasse was after my grandmother’s funeral in 2002. She spent some time with our family, talking about the friendship she shared with my grandmother. They had a lot in common. They were both adventurous, independent, strong-willed women who thrived on breaking barriers.
Jean Fasse died on June 21, 2008.
Source: Jean Moore Fasse Papers, Jackson Library, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Photo: Jean Fasse in Indian dress, circa 1946
![Photo: Class of lay midwives at Fayetteville State Teachers College’s Midwife Institute, 1955. [Source: NC Museum of History]
From 1951 to 1958, Fayetteville State Teachers College held an annual institute to provide training for midwives. The program was discontinued in 1959, as the number of participants declined. Midwives received additional training from local departments of health.](http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/exhibits/healthandhealing/elements/media/event-media/photoR3062_1.jpg)
Photo: Class of lay midwives at Fayetteville State Teachers College’s Midwife Institute, 1955. [Source: NC Museum of History]
From 1951 to 1958, Fayetteville State Teachers College held an annual institute to provide training for midwives. The program was discontinued in 1959, as the number of participants declined. Midwives received additional training from local departments of health.
Jean M. Bright (b. 1915) served with the American Red Cross in New Guinea and Japan from 1944 to 1946. After the war, Jean earned a masters degree in English from Columbia University and taught at North Carolina A&T State University until 1978.
Photo via Jackson Library, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
THOMAS HEDGEBETH.
I was born free, in Halifax Co. North Carolina, where I lived thirty-five years. About ten years ago, I removed to Indiana. My father was a farmer, half white, who ran through his farm. If a white man there brings a great account, the…
Last year this time, I was posting obituaries and turn-of-the-century newspaper articles. Snide and paternalistic as they often were, these snippets offer rare glimpses into the everyday lives of long-ago black folks. This year, in observation of the Month, 28 introductions to some real Djangos. Shrewd, fearless and fearsome, intensely loyal to family, agents of their own destinies — a Runaway a Day:
NOTICE. Ranaway from the subscriber, on the 9th of this instant, a negro man named JOE, and his wife named SINA, and two female children, one of the children four, the other two years old. Joe, the negro man, is twenty-five or six years old, five feet eight or nine inches high, stout built, very black, with uncommonly large feet; had on when he left me, a coarse blue broad cloth coat and a black wool hat. His wife Sina is twenty-eight or thirty years old, middle size, has large eyes, high cheek bones, middle size, her dress not recollected. It is thought that a negro girl named Silvia, the property of J. Purvines, my neighbor, who was missing on the same day that my negroes left me, is in company with them. Said Silvia is fourteen or fifteen years old, well grown of her age, dress not known. Any person who will apprehend said negroes, and lodge them in any Jail, so that I can get the, or deliver them to me, shall be rewarded for his trouble, with all reasonable expenses paid. JOHN GRIER. Mecklenburg County, N.C. Feb. 15, 1822. The Western Carolinian, Salisbury NC, 5 Mar 1822.
A new study of racial segregation in North Carolina shows that 30% of regular public schools are racially imbalanced, but 60% of charter schools are.
These findings echo the work of the UCLA Civil Rights Project, which has found that charter schools are frequently even more segregated than their surrounding district.
In Georgia, there are charter schools that are overwhelmingly white in districts where there are hardly any white students in the public schools. The Pataula Charter in Calhoun County is 75% white, but the local schools are only 2% white.
The first question is whether charter schools will become the new name for segregation academies?
The second question is why our society has turned its back on racial integration?
(Source: azspot)
Students and their teacher standing in front of the James’ Plantation Freedmen’s School. This school is possibly one of the schools established by the Reverend Horace James on the Yankee or Avon Hall Plantation in Pitt County, North Carolina. James was an Assistant Commander of the North Carolina Freedmen’s Bureau.
Taken between 1865-1868
More on Nat Williamson and his family here (I posted a picture of one of his children yesterday). Thanks to Throat, Eye & Knucklebone for uncovering this family’s history.
![James Donnell Williamson, child of Nat Williamson, Guilford County, North Carolina
April 1938
John Vachon, photographer
Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
[More about the Williamson family (including additional pictures): http://www.morningsonmaplestreet.com/natwilliamson1.html
Thanks to Throat, Eye & Knucklebone for this link.]](http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/fsa/8a03000/8a03100/8a03178v.jpg)
James Donnell Williamson, child of Nat Williamson, Guilford County, North Carolina
April 1938
John Vachon, photographer
Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress
[More about the Williamson family (including additional pictures): http://www.morningsonmaplestreet.com/natwilliamson1.html
Thanks to Throat, Eye & Knucklebone for this link.]
Condemned. At Surry Superior Court, last week, Abram Weaver, who has been confined in the jail of this county for some eighteen months, was tried and convicted of selling a free negro. An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court. People’s Press.
Carolina…
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Incredible history.
These are the images and accounts of how people worked, raised families, built communities, worshiped, maintained relationships, expressed themselves and coped with changes and challenges in the past. Most of the subjects are Americans of African descent.
"Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go." — James Baldwin
