The AME Church’s Kittrell College—a sibling institution to Wilberforce—also represented blacks’ hopes during freedom. The biggest difference was that Kittrell operated in the South under more stringent and intimidating circumstances. The former Johnson School of Raleigh became Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute in 1886. Miss Louise Door, a white northern missionary opened the school as a bible training class for blacks several years earlier. The idea to start Kittrell came from a group of Dorr’s students who “became enthusiastic over the studies and started to talk of better facilities. The matter was taken to the North Carolina Conference of the AME Church, and at once assumed definite shape, resulting in the proposition to establish a school at Kittrell, N. C.”102
Located in North Carolina’s Piedmont Region, the sixty acre Kittrell property stood “on the Raleigh and
101A. B. Caldwell, ed., History of American Negroes and His Institutions, Georgia Edition, 231; Letter from C.
H. Johnson (Kittrell Inst.) to Miss E. L. Jackson (Wilberforce College,) December 2, 1897, J. L. Wheeler Scrapbook, Scrapbook and Photo Album Box, Wheeler Papers.
102“About our School,” The Christian Recorder, August 19, 1886; Kittrell College Catalogue, 1918-1919, Rare
Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, 5-6.
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Gaston Railroad, 37 miles north of Raleigh and 8 miles South of Henderson.”103
Kittrell had a unique and intriguing history. At one point, the Kittrell grounds operated as the Kittrell Springs Hotel, a summer vacationing spot for wealthy white families who “came in their private carriages with their [slave] servants, seeking amusement and recreation.”104
During the Civil War, the Confederate Army took over Kittrell Springs and converted it into its General Hospital Number One to treat its sick and wounded soldiers. After the war, Kittrell Springs Hotel briefly reopened as a college for white women. The hotel reopened in 1872, but “the two largest buildings and two of the outhouses” mysteriously burned to the ground in December 1885, just four days before the AME Church’s North Carolina Conference officially acquired the site.105
The exact details are not entirely clear, but the Conference’s Bishop R. W. E. Leake from Raleigh handled the land purchase and negotiations. One annual report described the fire as being “strange,” which suggests the incident probably came at the hands of an arsonist angered that the formerly all- white edifice would be used to educate and uplift African Americans. The AME Church voted to start Kittrell Normal before the fire happened with plans to use the scorched buildings as dormitories to accommodate at least 150 students. The fire came as a brief set- back for the AMEChurch and there were few alternatives since the Johnson School property in Raleigh and had already been sold. Nevertheless, the North Carolina Conference refused
103“Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute,” The Christian Recorder, March 19, 1891; Kittrell College
Catalogue, 1918-1919, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, 5.
104 Obituary of John Hervey Wheeler.; Thomas Peace, ‘Zeb’s Black Baby’ Vance County, North
Carolina: A Short History (Durham, N.C.: The Seeman Printery, Incorporated, 1955), 352.; Mark Crawford,
Confederate Courage on Other Fields: Four Lesser Known Accounts of the War Between the States (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000), 139.
105Mark Crawford, Confederate Courage on Other Fields, 139-146; “Destruction of the Kittrell Springs school
property,” The Christian Recorder, December 31, 1885; Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute Fourth Annual Report, 1889-1890,” Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, 25.
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to let the incident keep it from actualizing its postwar aspirations. Despite Kittrell Springs’ ruin, the AME Church continued with its plans and opened the school’s doors on February 7, 1886; The North Carolina Legislature incorporated Kittrell a year later.106
In North Carolina, Kittrell Institute testified to the progress African Americans made through racial uplift. It also represented black’s determination to overcome white supremacy in the post-Reconstruction South. Ossian O. Hawkins knew exactly what Kittrell meant to blacks living in the state. He personally witnessed the school’s transformation from a bastion of slavery to a beacon of light for the race. In 1890, an emotional, but excited Hawkins “seemed to be the happiest man on the place” as he summed-up Kittrell’s significance in a commencement speech to its first graduating class. He recounted his experiences as a slave, telling the audience “in his short address…of how things had changed [at Kittrell] within so short a time,” only a quarter-century since his emancipation. Hawkins then “pointed to the room in which he had been made to sleep on the floor while his so-called master slept in a comfortable bed.” The elder Hawkins’ proudest moment came in seeing his son John Russell Hawkins become Kittrell’s president, “furnishing [the elder Hawkins with] a good bed and [putting him] in charge of the same property on which he had been made to do duty as a slave.”107
It came as no small feat that a place built to serve whites and used to protect the institution of slavery would itself become a place for the sole purpose of educating generations of African Americans. Yet, despite Kittrell’s presence and progress as
106Ibid.
107John R. Hawkins, The Educator: A Condensed Statement of the Department of Education of the African
Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church, circa 1906-1908), 29; Hartshorn, W. N., An Era of Progress and Promise: the Religious, Moral, and Educational Development of the American Negro since his Emancipation
(Boston: Priscilla Publishing Company, 1910), 288-289,
http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/p249901coll37&CISOPTR=4602&CISOSHOW=44 41.
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a black-owned institution,vestiges and memories of the Old South were never far away. The presence of a Confederate cemetery just across the tracks from the school—a stone’s throw away—stood as a visible monument. It was probably a constant reminder to blacks of their past enslavement, as well as their liberation. In an earlier period, Kittrell served a vastly different group of southerners than it did in later years. The historical backdrop remained visible once John Leonidas arrived at Kittrell College in 1898.108
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, North Carolina still seemed to be an optimistic and promising place for anyone seeking to establish themselves, but subsequent events quickly made the state a hostile setting for blacks. When John Leonidas arrived in North Carolina in 1898, he did so amid a well-planned and violent white supremacist campaign launched by the state’s Democratic Party. Two years earlier the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which sanctioned separation between the races. As several authors have explained, the white supremacy campaign strategy consisted largely of propaganda, the sensationalized threat of “Negro domination,” along with violence carried out against white Republicans and African Americans. White newspaper editors like the Raleigh News and Observer’s Josephus Daniels played influential roles in aiding the Democrats’ cause, often appealing to ideas of miscegenation and the rape of white women by black men to garner widespread support across class and political parties.109 The violent acts aimed at Republican sympathizers made the Democrats’ white
108Mark Crawford, Confederate Courage on Other Fields, 139-146; Samuel Thomas Peace, ‘Zeb’s Black Baby’:
Vance County, North Carolina a Short History, 363.
109 Janette Thomas Greenwood, Bittersweet Legacy: The Black and White ‘Better Classes’ in Charlotte, 1850-
1910 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 189; Glenda Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow:
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Figure 1.1 Kittrell College Campus (Source: Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute Fourth Annual Report, 1889-1890, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University)
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supremacy declarations all the more powerful. That violence peaked with the infamous 1898 Wilmington Race Riot, which local Democrats—using race as a crucial element—planned and executed a deadly coup d’état against a large black community and “fusion” controlled government in Wilmington, North Carolina in the days following the November election. The political alliance—referred to as fusion in 1890s North Carolina—came about because of disgruntled Democrats (mainly farmers and poor whites), African Americans, and Republicans. These groups aligned themselves politically, successfully electing joint-ticket candidates to local and state offices, once again restoring a sense of democracy and fair government in the state, something that had proved possible during Reconstruction.110 Despite the accomplishments of North Carolina’s fusion politics during the 1894 and 1896 elections, white supremacy triumphed in the end. The white supremacy campaign culminated with huge Democratic victories during the 1898 election and continued with the 1900 Suffrage Amendment, a devastating measure for African Americans as it led to their disenfranchisement in the state.111 By ruling-out the possibility of future black-white political coalitions based on class rather than race, white supremacy probably proved
Carolina Press, 1996), 85-89; Eric Anderson, Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901: The Black Second (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 254.
110Janette Thomas Greenwood, Bittersweet Legacy: The Black and White ‘Better Classes’ in Charlotte, 1850-
1910, 177, 197, chapter 5; Helen G. Edmonds, The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina, 1894-1901
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951), 136-217; Paul D. Escott, Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 241, 247, 253-254; for more on the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot see David S. Cecelski and Timothy B. Tyson,
Democracy Betrayed: the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Leon H. Prather, We Have Taken a City: the Wilmington Racial Massacre and Coup of 1896 (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1984); 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report (Raleigh: Research Branch, Office of Archives and History, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, 2006).
111
Helen G. Edmonds, The Negro and Fusion Politics in North Carolina, 1894-1901 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1951), 136-217; Paul D. Escott, Many Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina, 1850-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 241, 247, 253-254.
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especially distressing for blacks in places such as Vance County, Kittrell’s location, as it had been a Republic stronghold when it was established in 1881.112
The Republican stronghold in Vance County was partly due to a larger political phenomenon known as the “Black Second,” North Carolina’s Second Congressional District fashioned in 1872 to maintain heavily Democratic white-majority voting districts in eastern North Carolina. The Black Second earned its name from an unintended consequence of redistricting: “politically and socially the most important feature of the second district was its large Negro population.”113
As part of the Black Second, African Americans in Vance County outnumbered whites by as many as 700 to 800 voters. While they had political rights, blacks helped elect black candidates; between 1883 and 1900, Vance County elected five African American men to state offices: four to the House of Representatives (H. B. Eaton, James M. Watson, Moses M. Peace, and J. Y. Eaton), and one (W. B. Henderson) to the state senate. Henderson represented a district that included Vance and several other counties. Two African Americans served as Vance County’s register of deeds during that same period. Republican Henry Plummer Cheatham served from 1884 until 1888, when Thomas S. Eaton succeeded him, serving from 1888 until 1898. Henry Cheatham narrowly defeated white Democratic congressman Furnifold M. Simmons in the 1888 election, a loss that enraged Simmons for years to come and greatly influenced his chairmanship of the Democratic Party as he played a significant role in devising the party’s white supremacy campaign in 1898.114
112Samuel Thomas Peace, ‘Zeb’s Black Baby’: Vance County, North Carolina a Short History, 12-13. 113
Eric Anderson, Race and Politics in North Carolina, 1872-1901: The Black Second, 4.
114 Samuel Thomas Peace, ‘Zeb’s Black Baby,’, 13-14, 16; Paul D. Escott, Many Excellent People, 255.
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Figure 1.2 Kittrell College Faculty, Late 1890s. Left to Right: (top row) Earle Finch, George Adams, (second row from top) Kittrell College President John R. Hawkins, Pinkeney Hawkins, John Leonidas Wheeler, (the original photo description only includes five of the women pictured in no particular order) Mrs. John R. Hawkins, Kate Telfare, Mrs. Hawkins, Lena Cheek, and Rosa Alexander. (Photo Courtesy of the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center)
Despite the propaganda and physical violence aimed at black North Carolinians and the new political restrictions placed on black freedom, John Leonidas opted to remain in Kittrell and build a life there. Margaret Hervey came to Kittrell after she graduated from Wilberforce in 1900; it is highly likely that John Leonidas and Margaret Hervey courted one another during their days at Wilberforce. That courtship may have even had its origins in Kentucky given that the two came from the exact same area; they married on September 25, 1901. In 1904, John Leonidas became president at Kittrell Institute, which by that time had changed its name to Kittrell College, a move that perhaps solidified the black institution’s
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determination to counter white supremacy.115 While at Kittrell between 1898 and 1908, the Wheelers would have prepared their students for lifeby expounding on the same principles they themselves learned at Wilberforce and through the AME Church’s teachings. The “idea of self-help[, which was] strongly infused into the life of all the pupils and every student” at Kittrell made this especially true. A close reading of Kittrell’s annual reports and catalogues for this period reveals the school’s primary objective was to foster in students “a spirit of self reliance and Christian manhood and womanhood.”116
In this way, Kittrell students would have “a thorough English education, with some practical training in the different branches of trade” so they could “become useful men and women in the great work of enlightening their people.”117
At Kittrell this meant that, in addition to their academics, students worked for the school in some capacity each day to help defray the cost of tuition and board; for young men the work included “farming, brick-yard work, [or] carpentering,” while young ladies
performed domestic duties in “sewing, cooking, washing, ironing, [and] embroidering.” Kittrell discouraged admissions applications from students who did “not care to rise early and work” because the school had “no time for idlers, or those who wish[ed] to fill their heads at the expense of the hands an[d] muscles.” Kittrell’s doors were “open to all” who sought “elevation, and [would] cultivate the habits of sobriety, industry, cleanliness and
115
A. B. Caldwell, ed., History of American Negroes and His Institutions, Georgia Edition, 231.
116Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute Sixth Annual Report, 1891-1892, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special
Collections Library, Duke University, 11.
117
Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute Fourth Annual Report, 1889-1890,” Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, 25.
52 Godliness.”118
In her role as a sewing instructor in the Industrial Department, Margaret Hervey would have particularly instilled in her female students the notions of responsibility and respectability by teaching “traits of industrious, intelligent, dignified and cultured womanhood.” At Kittrell, young women learned the “proper observance of order and decency in the home, especially as to care of rooms and clothing; and the performance of all duties.”119
During John Leonidas’ tenure as professor and then Kittrell College president, it became evident that he reached a respectable status in his profession. In April 1906, for example, Professor Wheeler considered leaving the South and his position at Kittrell to accept a job offer as principal at a black high school in Evansville, Indiana for $1,000 a year. While Wheeler ultimately declined, the recommendation letters he received from his former professors and colleagues speak to his standing as an accomplished educator. Joshua H. Jones, Wilberforce University president, described Wheeler as “an exceptionally strong man intellectually, morally, and socially.” Johnson also noted that Wheeler was “thoroughly trustworthy, [and] a Christian gentleman to the core. As an educator he [had] few superiors among those of his years.” Wheeler’s former Kittrell colleague Charles H. Johnson, then an instructor at Wilberforce University, called Wheeler “a man of many strong parts, [who was] brilliant, conservative, refined and honorable; [was] very pleasing of address and a progressive educator.” John R. Hawkins, former Kittrell College president, explained that Wheeler “impressed” him “as being a [C]hristian gentleman, with executive ability and an
118Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute Fourth Annual Report, 1889-1890, 25; Kittrell Normal and Industrial
Institute Sixth Annual Report, 1891-1892; Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute Seventh Annual Report, 1892-1893; Kittrell Normal and Industrial Institute Eight Annual Report, 1893-1894.
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enviable tact to work compatibly with the other teachers who have had the honor of assisting him.” The heartfelt praise from colleagues also confirms the pride John Leonidas displayed in later years about his own character as he expressed his ability to “get along with people” and “how to concede to every man his right to his own opinion, and if at variance to anyone, try by word and deed, without antagonism, to convince him of his error and thus leave him without any cut to chew.”120