Chowan Discovery Group

“An Army of Educators” – a new Chowan Discovery lecture

by Leave a Comment

During and after the Civil War, Union officers and missionaries expanded literacy and skills in the south, resulting in a great rise in the reading population and creating schools, some of which exist today.  A school established in a Washington, D.C. army barracks in 1864 is still going strong. Fisk, Hampton, Howard and Shaw are among the universities that rose in the first five years after the war.  Within ten years after the war, Howard University was graduating men and women with degrees in medicine and law. Although many schools were destroyed and teachers and students threatened, the growth of education for people of color continued.  The Winton Triangle has its own story about a missionary teacher. Marvin T. Jones will give a overview of the people and organizations who propagated education among people of color and how southern whites also greatly benefitted.  As always, this lecture includes many stories and images of portraits, documents and places.

This talk is hosted by the Rock Creek Nature Center’s Civil War Roundtable which is always followed by a lively lunch at Ledo Pizza at 7435 Georgia Avenue, NW in DC.  The sponsors are the wonderful supporters of Chowan Discovery!

Radio Interview: HAITI AND THE CIVIL WAR

by Leave a Comment

With Bernice Bennett, Marvin’s host at the 2017 Black History Month Genealogy Conference in Laurel, MD where he was the keynote speaker.

Thanks to our friend Bernice Bennett, the very intrepid and accomplished host of the long running radio show, Research at the National Archives and Beyond, I get to talk about the lecture that I am giving two days earlier in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Civil War is sometimes called the Second Haitian Revolution.  For over seventy years, pro-slavers feared Haiti, and the enslaved and abolitionists found great hope from Toussaint Louverture and Haiti.  Marvin T. Jones details the actions of enslaved and abolitionists who were encouraged by the Haitian Revolution, Haiti’s own involvement in offering freedom to people of color,  and why Haiti was so important to keeping alive the hope that all Americans would be free.  The American leaders who wrote of, spoke of and acted due to their admiration for Louverture include John Brown, Martin Delaney, Gabriel Prosser, Frederick Douglass, Charlotte Forten, William Lloyd Garrison, Prince Hall, John Mercer Langston, Wendell Phillips, Senator Charles Sumner, Denmark Vesey and David Walker.  Many African Americans today are descended from all who saw Haiti as a guiding light.

This interview will be still accessible after the broadcast.  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bernicebennett/2017/10/06/the-civil-war-and-the-second-haitian-revolution-with-marvin-t-jones

 

 

Chowan Discovery’s Achievement Report for 2016

by Leave a Comment

So much has happened since Marvin’s first presentations in 2007 and the Winton Triangle stage production in 2009.  Over fifty presentations, seven articles, seven broadcast appearances, six highway historical markers, three films, three murals and one award are among Chowan Discovery’s achievements prior to 2017.  Here is our record for 2016:

Public Presentations

February: “A Chowanoke History” at Mt Pleasant Baptist Church in Harrellsville NC 
February: “Haiti’s Forts of Freedom” at the U.S. Park Service in Reston VA – closed event.
March: Showing the film The Campaigns of Molly Hundley at the Historical Society of Washington, Washington DC
April: Hosted the annual Chowan Discovery Fundraiser, Rockville MD
May: The new lecture, “Loyal Southerners” at Rock Creek Nature Center in Washington DC
September: “The Winton Triangle’s Civil War” at the Greenbelt Library in Greenbelt MD, hosted by C.R. Gibbs.
October: showing of the film The Campaigns of Molly Hundley and panel presentation on highway historical markers, at ASALH annual conference (Association for the Study of African American Life and History), Richmond VA
November: The new lecture, “Haiti and the Civil War” at Rock Creek Nature Center in Washington DC
November: “The Winton Triangle” for the Middle Peninsula Afro American Genealogical and Historical Society in Tappahannock VA
December: “Pleasant Plains School’s 150 Years” at Pleasant Plains Baptist Church, Winton, NC
December: The new lecture, “Memories of Mrs. Katie A. Hart”, Cultivator Bookstore, Murfreesboro NC

Publications:

– An essay, “Rebirth on the Chowan”, We Will Always Be Here, edited by Dr. Denise A. Bates, published by the University of Florida Press, May 2016
– “Foreword”, From Hilltown to Strieby by Margo Lee Williams, Backintyme Publishing, July 2016.

Recognition:

Placing Pleasant Plains Schoolhouse (a Rosenwald school) on the National Register for Historic Places, July, 2016

Final Note: It is important to recognize the efforts that were not ultimately successful: Chowan Discovery applied for a grant for a Winton Triangle photography project, and two marker nominations.  Despite this, the number of presentations for 2017 are set to exceed those of 2016.  More to come!

(For activities of previous years, visit the archives of the News and Events pages.)

Winton Triangle History in Tuscon!

by Leave a Comment

Marvin T. Jones presents photographs, maps and narrative of his community’s 275 year-old history of landowning mixed-race people in North Carolina’s Hertford County area.  The written history of the Winton Triangle begin in 1584 when the English first learn about the area.  The three main towns of the Triangle are Winton, Cofield and Ahoskie. The Winton Triangle’s story is that of a new people who cobbled success and identity despite colonization, wars, slavery and discrimination.  Jones uses maps, documents and photographs to tell this 400+ year old story.  This presentation has been given many times in North Carolina – of course –  in Virginia, Maryland, Chicago, Tennesee, New York, West Virginia, and is now going across the Rockies.

 

Barbea Williams Performing Company and Family
Dunbar Pavilion – BWPC Dance and Art Academy
325 West 2nd Street, Tucson, AZ

Pleasant Plains School’s 150th Anniversary

by Leave a Comment

This is the 1920 Pleasant Plains School House, funded in part by Julius Rosenwald. His portrait is in the three-room schoolhouse.
This is the 1920 Pleasant Plains School House, funded in part by Julius Rosenwald. His portrait is in the three-room schoolhouse.

Pleasant Plains Baptist Church leaders founded its Pleasant Plains School the year after the end of the Civil War.  Before then, there were no schools for people of color, enslaved or free.  The school, its church, leaders and students went on to establish other school in the area and in Virginia.  The most notable daughter school is C.S. Brown School (originally Chowan Academy and Waters Training School), the first normal or high school for people of color in the Roanoke-Chowan area.  Also many of its alumni became teachers and business people.

The first schoolhouse was replaced by the current Rosenwald building. After the school’s closing in 1950, Pleasant Plains Schoolhouse became a community center.

Chowan Discovery and Pleasant Plains Baptist Church will host a program on the school’s history, its importance and its new status on the National Registry of Historic Places.  The program begins after the 11am Sunday service.

Winton Triangle Presentation in Tappahannock, VA

by Leave a Comment

Marvin T. Jones presents photographs, maps and narrative of his community’s 275 year-old history of landowning mixed-race people in North Carolina’s Hertford County area.  The written history of the Winton Triangle begin in 1584 when the English first learn about the area.  The three main towns of the Triangle are Winton, Cofield and Ahoskie. The Winton Triangle’s story is that of a new people who cobbled success and identity despite colonization, wars, slavery and discrimination.

Hosted by the Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society of Virginia.