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Guardian of black history dies at 82 Ella Williams-Vinson of Cary dedicated her life to teaching
By Aliana Ramos

aramos@newsobserver.com
CARY In the summer of 1968, Ella Williams-Vinson was one of three women who traveled dusty Cary roads in hopes of convincing parents of black children to join a new preschool.

     The first preschool in town for African-American children opened that fall with 13 students, at Mt. Zion Baptist Church.
     Education was important to Williams-Vinson, a Cary native and lifelong resident who dedicated her life to teaching at Wake County public schools and preserving the history of the local black community. She died June 21 at age 82.
      Williams-Vinson fought to ensure that black families in Cary were not portrayed as poor and uneducated. Instead, she wanted to show them as a group of prominent landowners who owned businesses, were elected to public office and engaged in civic activities.
     She chronicled the local African-American community in her book, "Both Sides of the Tracks: A Profile of the Colored Community, Cary, NC." The first edition was published in 1996.
     After Cary's centennial celebration in 1971, Williams-Vinson noted the lack of information about the black community. She wrote in her book: "Instead it is much easier to portray colored people as domestics, servants, or ignorant people. Colored people fitting the latter descriptions were the minority in Cary as far back at the 1840s. ... We cannot continue to ignore the fact Cary's early colored settlers were just as productive as many in the white population."
      Lyman Collins, Cary's cultural arts manager, said Williams-Vinson opened his eyes to the black community's rich history in Cary.
      "It was very middle-class. African-Americans were landowners, not sharecroppers," Collins said. "Most people, when they hear of the post-Civil War South, think they were sharecroppers.
     "Ella was very clear that she came from a family who owned land and who were civic-minded. That was a valuable lesson for me."
     Williams-Vinson's grandfather, Arch Arrington Sr., was Cary's first elected black mayor. Her father, Arch Arrington Jr., helped raise money to build a new Cary Colored School after the original building burned to the ground in 1935.
      Williams-Vinson graduated from the school and returned there as a teacher in the 1950s. She also taught at Briarcliff, Farmington Woods and Apex elementary schools.
     Collins worked with Williams-Vinson to collect photographs of graduates of the Cary Colored School to put in the Cary Arts Center, alongside photos of graduates of the all-white Cary High School.
     "Ella was so forceful and dynamic," Collins said. "She could walk into a room and take it over."
     Williams-Vinson also had a hand in exhibits at the Page-Walker Arts & History Center in Cary and the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh.
     A school slate used by her great-grandmother, Sallie Blake Arrington, from 1866 is on display at the state museum, said Debra Nichols, a volunteer coordinator with the museum.
     Williams-Vinson served as a docent for the museum from 1991 to 1999.
     When her husband, Bob, passed away, the museum started a memorial fund in his name. The money was used to buy artifacts for an exhibit.
     "She was just so friendly and outgoing," Nichols said of Williams-Vinson. "She had this bubbly personality.
     "The kids just loved her."

Mary Catherine Canty, the woman who is credited with helping to save the Historic Myrtle Beach Colored School, died Tuesday night from complications after suffering a stroke. She was 81. 
     Canty, who suffered the stroke more than a week ago, had a living will asking that she not be resuscitated. She underwent surgery following the stroke but was not getting better, said family friend April Johnson.
      Canty attended the Myrtle Beach Colored School, which was the first public school for black students in the Myrtle Beach area, beginning in 1939 when she was 6 years old. She worked with a group of former students for more than 20 years to ensure the school, which closed in 1953, was not destroyed.
     "She was a powerful woman of God," her daughter Mary "Cookie" Goings said. "Her spirit was so strong. ... And [though she was small] she was fierce. She had a presence and she had, what we called, the 'look.'"
     Canty was born in 1933 in Myrtle Beach, growing up on Oak Street before moving to what is now known as Dennison Avenue in the Harlem neighborhood about 70 years ago. Dennison Avenue was named after Canty's grandfather.
     She attended the Colored School until eighth grade before going to Whittemore High School in Conway. While Canty only attended segregated schools, her oldest daughter Martha was one of the four black children to integrate Myrtle Beach Middle School in 1965.
     Canty did not finish school as a child, but went back to take adult education classes at night at Myrtle Beach High School and received her high school diploma in 1970. Her second oldest child was in school during the day at the time, Goings said.
     The Colored School closed in 1953 and served as a warehouse before sitting unused for many years. That same year, the Carver Training School, another school for black children, opened on Dunbar Street. She still carried a newspaper clipping announcing Carver's opening in her wallet.
     In 1979 Canty and other former students approached City Council for help to save the school. They continued to work for more than 20 years before they learned in 2001 that the school was in the path of plans to widen what is now known as Mr. Joe White Avenue.
     "We wanted something that was us, that represented us," she said in 2013. "We wanted something, too, for our children – for everybody – to know, to see that they were treated justly."
     Canty and others worked with Diane Moskow-McKenzie, senior planner with Myrtle Beach, to help restore the colored school.
     The building, which was beyond repair and "full of asbestos," was demolished and a replica was built near the old location, Canty said. Moskow-McKenzie said Canty ensured that the building was disassembled and what could be preserved was saved.
     "I cannot tell you how much that [school] meant to her," Goings said. "It was very close to heart, and now it is to ours."
     Moskow-McKenzie said she first met in Canty in 1994.
     "I knew from the moment I met her that she is a person that you would want to know better," she said. "Mrs. Canty was a wonderful loving teacher and friend. She always had everyone's best interest at heart. Knowing her was to love her.
     "When I think of her today [Wednesday] I recall something that I heard long ago: 'Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal,'" Moskow-McKenzie said. "There will be a huge void in this community now that Mrs. Canty is gone."
     Myrtle Beach City Council recognized Canty in 2013 with a proclamation declaring that Feb. 22 as Mary Canty Day and recognized her work to restore the colored school.
     At the council meeting where she was honored, Canty told council it was a heartwarming, moving experience.
     "It reminds me of a song that a group called The Consolers used to sing," she said then, reciting lyrics from the gospel song "Give Me My Flowers."
     In the song the singers ask to be remembered by being given flowers and told kind words while they are still living instead of in their memory so they are able to appreciate them.
     "Today, you have done just that," Canty said. "Given me my flowers and kind words for me to hear. If I had a million – a trillion dollars, I could not pay for this moment in time."
     Goings has asked that there be no flowers sent in honor of her mother.
     "Her request always – and she put it in writing – was that there be no flowers at the funeral," Goings said.
     Instead, Canty requested that donations be made to the Historic Myrtle Beach Colored School or to the Mount Olive AME Church stewardess board.
     Arrangements are being handled by the Ocean View Funeral Home on Carver Street. Vieiwing and visitation will be 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, with memorial services at 1 p.m. Saturday. Both will be at Mt. Olive AME Church, 1108 Carver St.

John Jeffreys - Life of U.S. Colored Infantry veteran emphasizes pursuit of education 'These invaluable arts'
The issuance of General Order 135 during the Civil War was the beginning stages of a concentrated effort by the Union Army to recruit men for the United States Colored Troops (USCT). This order, which compensated slave owners up to $300 for each slave they enlisted, not only provided soldiers for the Union, but also resulted in the freedom and education of many who had previously lived in bondage.
     Once many of these former slaves turned combat-hardened soldiers tasted the empowerement of an education while serving in uniform, they often dedicated the rest of their lives to teaching others, leading to the establishment of fine institutions such as Lincoln University.
     John Jeffreys, according to his death certificate, was born in Virginia on March 31, 1844, and began his journey toward freedom while living as a slave in Missouri.
     According to "Descriptive Recruitment Lists of Volunteers for the United States Colored Troops for the State of Missouri, 1863-1865," accessible through the Missouri State Archives, the young slave was enlisted in the Union army by his owner, Arthur Paine of Boone County, on Dec. 2, 1863 in Jefferson City.
     Assigned to the1st Colored Missouri Infantry, Jeffreys and other black recruits traveled to Benton Barracks—a training site established in St. Louis in 1861 by General John C. Fremont. (Benton Barracks was located on the present day site of Fairground Park.)
     Their battles for equality were only beginning, even within the military forces they were enlisted to support, as the soldiers contended with a lack of proper food, poor sanitary conditions and a shortage of adequate clothing. Historical records indicate that as many as one-third of the black soldiers enlisted had died at the post from various undiagnosed diseases.
     Attached to the "District of St. Louis, Mo., to January 1864," as noted in Volume 1 of the Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, the regiment was later ordered to Port Hudson, La., where they were redesignated the 62nd Colored Infantry on March 11, 1864.
     Despite many prejudices the men of the regiment were forced to overcome, they proved their mettle in training and so impressed Brigadier General Daniel Ullman that he wrote of the men on July 30, 1864, "This regiment is the best under my command …"
     Expectations for learning soon became a reality within the 62nd through persuasions such as General Order No. 31 dated July 3, 1864. In the order, Lt. Col. David Branson stated, "All non-Commissioned officers of this command who shall fail to learn to read by or before the 1st day of January 1865 will be reduced to the ranks and their places filled by persons who can read."
     Weeks later, while the regiment was stationed at Brazos Santiago, Texas, an order was issued that, although intended to stop gambling among the USCT soldiers of the regiment, was added to a handful of previous orders—all of which would later inspire the founding of an educational institution in Jefferson City.
     In her book "Busy Hands: Images of the Family in the Northern Civil War Effort," author Patricia Richard explains that "literacy was used as a punishment for gambling" and any offenders "were placed standing in some prominent position in the camp with book in hand, and required then and there to learn a considerable lesson in reading and spelling."
     As their service in the war progressed, Jeffreys and the 62nd participated in notable military engagements including the Battle of Palmito Ranch (Texas) on May 12-13, 1865, which has the distinction as the last battle fought in the Civil War and was considered a Confederate victory, resulting in 118 Union casualties.
     After the war's end, the men of of the 62nd remained in Texas until March 1866, during which Jeffreys and fellow soldiers of both the 62nd and 65th USCT donated money to raise funds for what would later become Lincoln University.
     Having attained the rank of sergeant major—the highest enlisted rank and evidence his peformance of duty—Jeffreys was discharged on March 31, 1866, as noted on muster rolls from the Missouri State Archives.
     Though it is uncertain as to any specific role Jeffreys played in the founding of Lincoln University other than donations to help establish the institution, newspaper records note he embarked upon a personal vocation of helping to educate black citizens of Mid-Missouri as early as the 1870s.
     "The colored school was provided for by the election of J.O. Jeffreys, the most successful teacher that has yet had charge of that school," stated an article in the July 5, 1877 edition of the Rolla Herald.
     The ensuing years saw the veteran continue to leverage the education he received while in the service when, in 1879, he was "unanimously elected as principal of the colored school (in Rolla)." The same year he married Minerva Marr and the couple raised two sons and a daughter.
     Property inventories available through the Missouri Office of Historic Preservation note that in 1882, "the (Rolla) school board voted to improve the African American school, to be called Lincoln School." The school remained in operation until the 1950s and the original brick building remains a historical landmark in the community.
     In 1890, Jeffreys left teaching and purchased what eventually became the Rolla Steam Laundry, which he operated until failing health required him to retire. The veteran passed away on November 5, 1922 and is buried in Rolla Cemetery.
     Once property of another, Jeffreys admirably fought on behalf of a nation struggling to come to terms with the concept of "inalienable rights," choosing instead to focus his energies in establishing a path to an education that he and other black citizens had once been denied.
     And if we might assume there were ever any words wholly embraced by Jeffreys and the founders of Lincoln University, it was the command issued to the men of the regiment by Lt. Col. David Branson on July 3, 1864.
      "All soldiers of this command who have by any means learned to read & write, will aid and assist to the extent of their ability their fellow soldiers to learn these invaluable arts."
     Decades later, Lincoln University continues to serve as an enduring tribute to men such as Jeffreys, who sought to extend the privilege of hard-earned freedom and share the benefits of the education they received while serving their nation.

Jeremy P. Ämick writes on behalf of the Silver Star Families of America.