Monthly Archives: January 2016

North Carolina, Politics, Rights

He will rise up some day and come again.

Today marks the 115th anniversary of George H. White’s Phoenix speech, delivered as the North Carolina representative bade farewell to Congress. The full text of the speech is available here, but here are his final ringing and prophetic words:

“This, Mr. Chairman, is perhaps the negroes’ temporary farewell to the American Congress; but let me say, Phoenix-like he will rise up some day and come again. These parting words are in behalf of an outraged, heart-broken, bruised, and bleeding, but God-fearing people, faithful, industrious, loyal people — rising people, full of potential force.

“Mr. Chairman, in the trial of Lord Bacon, when the court disturbed the counsel for the defendant, Sir Walter Raleigh raised himself up to his full height and, addressing the court, said:

“Sir, I am pleading for the life of a human being.

“The only apology that I have to make for the earnestness with which I have spoken is that I am pleading for the life, the liberty, the future happiness, and manhood suffrage for one-eighth of the entire population of the United States.”

My kinsmen Henry E. Hagans and William S. Hagans, brothers, served as secretaries to White during his terms in Washington.

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Education, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

State Colored Normal School student.

I stumbled upon this catalog last night as I was researching for afamwilsonnc.com. As I scanned the list of students, I was stunned to see W.S. Hagans of Fremont, Wayne County. This is William S. Hagans, son of Napoleon and Appie Ward Hagans, and first cousin to my great-great-grandmother Louvicey Artis Aldridge (1865-1927.) William graduated from Howard University’s preparatory division in 1889 and went on to obtain bachelor’s and a law degree from Howard. Apparently, however, he spent at least a year of high school in Fayetteville, a little closer to home. A few months ago, I would have immediately picked up the phone to share this new information with my cousin Bill, William’s grandson. Bill is gone though, so I’ll just have to imagine his warm laugh and exclamations of surprise.

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Catalogue found here.

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Births Deaths Marriages, Paternal Kin

In memoriam: Brent Aldridge Oldham.

My cousin Brent Aldridge Oldham, an esteemed pediatrician in Seattle, Washington, passed away on 22 December 2015. Born in Washington DC in 1950, he was the son of the late M. Brent and Virginia Aldridge Oldham. His grandfather Zebedee Aldridge was my great-grandfather James T. Aldrich‘s brother.

His family has created a fine tribute to his life and memory.

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Births Deaths Marriages, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Born this day: 1 January.

Name — Susan Casey Lewis.

Birth — 1 January 1787, Wayne County, North Carolina.

Parents — Micajah Casey and Sarah Herring Casey.

Spouse — Urban Lewis.

Death — 10 October 1860, Wayne County, North Carolina.

Relationship to me — Paternal great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.

[Hat tip to Hollie Ann Henke, relativityitsallrelative.com.]

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Agriculture, Newspaper Articles, North Carolina, Paternal Kin

Emancipation Day.

Gboro Daily Argus 12 31 1905 Emancipation Day

Goldsboro Daily Argus, 31 December 1905.

For decades, on January 1, African-American communities formally celebrated the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1905, under the leadership, in part, of William S. Hagans and Mack D. Coley, the “Educational, Agricultural and Industrial mass meeting” of Wayne County’s “colored citizens” issued an eight-point pledge:

(1) to be respectable;

(2) to endorse state policy to give all children, regardless of color, an education;

(3) to urge school attendance;

(4) to encourage teachers not only to teach, but to pay home visits and preach every manner of virtue and home improvement;

(5) to disapprove of shiftlessness;

(6) to condemn crime and encourage law-abiding conduct;

(7) to suggest that farmers carry insurance and to educate them; and

(8) to become more united as a race, to organize to buy land, and to help one another retire mortgages.

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