Published in Salt Magazine, January 2017
Story & Illustrations by Isabel Zermani
Walking downtown Wilmington, one can stumble upon historic house plaques and roadside markers with names you may or may not recognize. On their own, these tidbits elicit curiosity, but don’t offer much context. Other sites aren’t plaqued, or were demolished, leaving the story’s ends unbound. With a guide to connect place-to-place, the tidbits talk to each other, giving life to stories, to understanding.
“‘A people without history is like a tree without roots,’ Marcus Garvey said that,” quotes Islah Speller who created a foundation, mini-museum and black history walking tour to instill those roots.
Speller begins her tour with the roots of her Dutch Colonial home, The Burnett-Eaton House, 410 North 7th Street. Dr. Foster Burnett (1894–1945) ran a home clinic and founded the first local African-American hospital, Community Hospital (est.1921) and nursing school across the street at 415 N. 7th Street. James Walker Memorial Hospital permitted black patients but not black doctors. Speller shows photos of her home’s former exam and x-ray rooms, even a nurse filling prescriptions in the pharmacy.
Dr. Hubert Eaton Sr. (1916-1991) married Dr. Burnett’s daughter, Celeste. He became the hospital’s chief and an unparalleled activist for equality. He successfully sued the Board of Education to force upgrades to ‘separate but equal’ schools. He compelled integration at Wilmington College (now UNCW), the county library and even the municipal golf course.
Walk one block south to the home of Dr. Leroy Upperman (1913-1996), 315 N. 7th Street, the first resident at Community Hospital, who later joined the surgical staff of the integrated New Hanover Regional Medical Center; it opened in 1967, the closing day of the segregated hospitals. UNCW’s Upperman African American Cultural Center is named in his honor.
Continue two blocks south to 713 Princess Street, the home of Dr. James Francis Shober (1853-1889), North Carolina’s first black doctor. The son of a slave, Dr. Shober graduated from Howard Medical School and moved to N.C.’s largest city, to serve a black population of over 10,000 people. (Dr. Eaton wrote his biography.) Turn around and you’ll face the Giblem Lodge (est. 1866) at 19 N. 8th Street. Built by the Free and Accepted Prince Hall Masons, it was Wilmington’s first black lodge in the heyday of lodges. Later, it doubled as the city’s first black library.
Four blocks south and three east marks the site of New Community Hospital (est. 1939) next-door to Williston Industrial High School, 401 S. 10th Street, “the greatest school under the sun.” All Williston alums are proud, but some are famous. Althea Gibson, the first black female Wimbledon Champion, graduated while mentored by Dr. Eaton, living at his nearby home, 1406 Orange Street, with regulation tennis courts.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was scheduled to speak at Williston on April 4th, 1968, but extended his stay in Memphis; he was murdered that day. Protests at Williston would snowball into riots.
Schools integrated the next year, closing Williston (it later reopened as a middle school) in favor of New Hanover. The loss of these pillars — the hospital and school— left a spiritual and physical hole. Racial tensions between students boiled over, causing a mass boycott. Black students took refuge at Gregory Congregational United Church, 609 Nun Street, to start their own school. Riots and arson spread citywide. Black protestors and white supremacist groups clashed in gunfire. In February of 1971, the firebombing of a white-owned store and gunfire onto responding fireman led to the arrests of 8 black students, a white social worker, and the reverend Ben Chavis, who would become internationally known as The Wilmington Ten. They were imprisoned almost a decade before the charges were overturned. In 2012, they were officially pardoned by Governor Beverly Perdue. A marker was erected in November on Nun Street.
Featuring the achievements and struggles of black history in Wilmington, Speller’s tour is comprehensive. Homes of black architects, builders, inventors, educators, as well as schools, businesses, churches and monuments — covering slavery to 1898 to Jim Crow to Civil Rights — are all within walking distance. “Through the cobblestone streets of the city, we will learn of their indomitable spirit,” and some will feel its presence stirring.
Info: African American Heritage Trail Walking Tours by appointment. 60–90 minutes. Call 910-769-4450 or email spellerislah@yahoo.com, groups welcome. Or take a self-guided tour with the city’s guide: http://www.wilmingtonnc.gov/home/showdocument?id=16
Isabel Zermani, our senior editor, prefers the storied life.
