I found this image in the digital Heritage of Black Highlanders Collection of the University of North Carolina-Asheville’s Ramsey Library. Taken in 1945, the photograph is entitled “Marian Anderson visits Stephens-Lee,” a high school in Asheville. Anderson was in town to give a recital at the City Auditorium. She is, of course, standing at middle, facing the camera squarely. Others on the front row, left to right, were Mable McCaine, teacher (in light-colored dress); an unidentified woman; Vernon Cowan, teacher; Frank Toliver, principal; J.D. Carr, editor of Carolina Times; and Isabell Jones, a music teacher at Allen High School.
Mable Williams McCaine was born 23 November 1912 in Goldsboro, North Carolina, to Clarence J. Williams and Daisy Aldridge Williams. Her maternal grandparents were Matthew W. and Fannie Kennedy Aldridge. The Williamses relocated to Asheville before 1920. Mable married Irvin L. McCaine, and the couple lived in Asheville with their two young sons in the 1940s.
Scuffalong: Genealogy. 
The unidentified woman is Willie Copney Carr wife of J. D. Carr.
Thank you!!!
FYI
Little Fannie , Daisy and Mamie Aldredge are first cousins of 8 Dent/Darden children with Ida Kennedy Dent Darden as their mom. There is extensive history of Dent/Darden descendents on Facebook–but access is restricted to family members
Thanks for the info. Their grandfather Needham Kennedy was a fascinating figure!
Needham was my GG grandfather. His father was white and his mom Native American. That is why he is a colored man in the newspapers. He was never a slave and I don’t believe he has black ancestry.
He had 3 wives. Patience my GG grandma was his 2nd wife. Mrs. Martha A Samson his 3rd wife. I don’t believe that he or his wives were ever slaves. They were very prosperous colored people live in during slavery times.
Sincerely,
Traci Lindsay
Get Outlook for Androidhttps://aka.ms/AAb9ysg
Are we talking about the same Needham Kennedy? I have a photo of Fannie Kennedy Aldridge, and she appeared to have significant African ancestry. I have not been able to find Needham in Wayne County census records. Where did he live? Thanks!
YES….only colored Needham Kennedy in Goldsboro…a very prosperous businessman…Rough and Ready vessel sank in Nouse River.
I grew up under Fannie Jr…my grandma’s first cousin..saw her photo albums..Fannie’s mother and father were Matthew and Fanny Aldridge in Goldsboro.
“Fannie Jr.” lived in Philadelphia, near my grandmother. (My grandmother’s father was Fannie’s 1st cousin.) I’m talking about her mother Fannie Kennedy Aldridge, Matthew’s wife.
There were laws in the South against miscegenation and my grandmother said her grandpa didn’t like to talk about his family circumstances understandably. I think his mother was a servant in the Kennedy household. He was born and raised in Goldsboro and lived in the colored section as a prosperous businessman well-known but everyone.
Miscegenation laws never stopped miscegenation. Many many people in Wayne County were mixed race or free people of color or both, including Matthew Aldridge. However, I cannot find Needham Kennedy in any 19th century census records. That’s why I wondered where he grew up.
It would be great to do a DNA match to find out which Kennedy family he grew up in because he grew up there and was educated knew all about business how to run businesses in the parlor where his father taught him. There’s a lot that’s kept secret but with DNA a lot of things can be known. He was the youngest and I’ve heard that he was the old man’s favorite child but it’s back in the 1800s so I don’t know the truth of it. Just what I’ve heard from granny with me who heard it from her relatives. Her grandparents were dead by the time she was born.
I encourage you to DNA test! It’s been a game changer for me.
I remember Cousin Fannie mentioning that she had relatives on her father’s side nearby whom she connected with often. I remember her mentioning that so she may have been speaking of your grandma.
Fannie’s house was on Filbert Street where she used to babysit for me all the time. Cousin Mamie of Union, SC sold Fannie’s house after her death and Fannie is buried
with her husband and son Buster. My mom attended Cousin Fannie’d funeral service.
Yes! That would have been my grandmother, who lived on Wyalusing Avenue. I have a couple of photos of Cousin Fannie sitting in Mother Dear’s kitchen. I remember her vaguely from our visits to Philly when I was a child. There was also another cousin, Hattie Brewington Davis, who lived in Philadelphia. She was a daughter of Matthew Aldridge and my GG-GF John Aldridge’s sister Amelia Aldridge Brewington.
After Cousin Fannie had her stroke I remember visiting Fannie at her relatives house where she was staying. It’s so long ago I can’t remember which relatives house.
Hmm. Not sure who that was. Hattie Davis died before Cousin Fannie did.
For the sake of privacy I will try to email you separately or contact you by phone etc.
Sure! My email address is blackwideawake at gmail dot com.
Thanks. You have mine.
I think the color part of town was called Little Washington. Details of his birth were kept quiet naturally.