In May of 1896, after [[W. Lee Person]] received only one vote for town council from Ward 2, where he and [[Rena Person]] lived at [[401 North Main Street]], he campaigned for the 5th district N.C. Senate seat and won. Among his successes as State Senator, Lee Person introduced a bill to amend the Rocky Mount Town Charter. The Act, ratified on March 5th, 1897, created a 5th ward in Rocky Mount, giving voice to African American interests, protecting the ballot box, and enabling the popular democratic election of the Mayor and Town Commissioners in Rocky Mount. Two months later, as a direct result of the amended Charter, Peter Darden was elected and served as Rocky Mount’s first African American Town Council member. ![[person in senate.png|150]] *Person in the State Senate* ______________ # [[Peter Darden]] In 1897, Peter Darden became the first African American elected to public office in Rocky Mount, winning the Board of Commissioners seat from the 5th Ward. His historic election rewarded and honored his two decades of service and success in upbuilding Rocky Mount from a sleepy little railroad village to a booming New South manufacturing and tobacco town. Peter Darden was born into slavery on Dec 8, 1841, in Green County, NC. He married Edna Speight, born May 6, 1856, also of Green County. In 1875, about a decade after emancipation, he and Edna settled in Rocky Mount. A skilled and experienced house builder, Peter purchased approximately 1 ½ acres of property in the town limits and built their homeplace (230 N. Franklin Street across from the current Piggly Wiggly). By the beginning of Rocky Mount’s Fusion Decade, Peter had founded Rocky Mount’s first two African American churches, served on a bi-racial cemetery committee that located the cemetery property the Town purchased in 1892 to serve its African American population, and he was a Trustee of the Cedar Hill Cemetery Association, organized to operate the town's first cemetery. During the 1890s Fusion Decade, Peter Darden, [[Frank Weston Davis]], and [[Thomas Weston]] were trustees and stockholders in the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in Rocky Mount. The Odd Fellows Hall served as Rocky Mount’s first African American community center, hosting singers, entertainers, and prominent speakers who drew large audiences of both Black and white people. The Odd Fellows also purchased the Odom Livery Stable, located on Tarboro Street, 167’6'' southeast of Washington Street, for $5,500. In response to the booming tobacco economy, Peter Darden purchased a white mare and a dray wagon and harness to transport hogsheads (large wooden barrels used to weigh and ship tobacco) between warehouses, leaf factories and the railroad. The Odd Fellows livery stable business was a success and appears to be Rocky Mount’s first co-operative African American business venture. But following North Carolina’s 1898 White Supremacy Campaign, Peter Darden, now 57 years old, chose not to seek a third term on the Town Council. Peter and Edna remained active and influential members of [[Places/Saint James Missionary Baptist Church]] for many years. They both died in 1921 and were buried side by side in the cemetery purchased by the town in order to relocate Cedar Hill Cemetery from its original location (adjacent to the all white Pineview Cemetery) to the Northeastern quadrant of Rocky Mount. (See Old Northeastern Cemetery Local Landmark Report) ________________________ # [[ Rev. Charles Edwin Spicer]] Charles Edwin Spicer was born in Nash County on Nov 8, 1868, By 1893, 25-year-old Charles Spicer was living in the northwest quadrant of Rocky Mount and he served as trustee of the First Colored Baptist Church of Rocky Mount (Mount Zion). A couple of years later in 1895 he was living and voting in Raleigh where he was employed as a circulation manager for the African American owned newspaper, *The Gazette* - an indication of the growing economic and social opportunities available to African Americans across North Carolina during the Fusion Decade He became a prominent and active member of the Republican party in Raleigh and an alternate delegate to the 1896 national convention in St Louis. After the State and National Republican landslide in that year's election, he joined with his friend and newly elected Republican State Senator, [[W. Lee Person]], to incorporate the National Protective Association (NPA) which was chartered by the General Assembly on March 5, 1897. The Association was incorporated to promote education and economic development for African Americans in North Carolina. W.C. Coleman was treasurer and the NPA was a heavy investor in the construction of the Coleman Mill in Concord NC - the first Cotton Mill in America owned and operated by African Americans. On June 1, 1898, in Rocky Mount, C.E. Spicer married Miss Theodosia Horne - daughter of Pompey and Harriet Dancy Horne. Senator Person applied for the marriage license and was a witness at the couple's wedding on that happy day. But less than 6 months later North Carolina’s white supremacy campaign led to the demise of the Raleigh Gazette and Charles returned to live full time in Rocky Mount. He purchased a home at 703 W. Thomas Street down the block from his brother, Alfred T Spicer, in the Happy Hill Suburb. Alfred Spicer was a house contractor and Charles Spicer was soon employed as a painter. In 1899 Charles E. Spicer served as the second African American Town Commissioner from the 5th Ward. This was the pivotal year between the fusion politics of the 1890s and the emerging white supremacy rule over North Carolina. (There is no record of his achievements as a Commissioner - the minutes from this period have been removed from Rocky Mount’s record book) By 1925 Charles and Theodosia Spicer were living apart. Rev. Spicer now lived at 907 W. Thomas Street with his sister Mamie Simpson - she ran a boarding house in her home after her husband's death. Theodosia Horne Spicer died on March 19, 1954, and the Rev. Charles E Spicer died on May 25, 1962, at the advanced age of 94! Both Rev. Spicer and his wife are buried in Unity Cemetery. ______________________ # [[Jerry Jasper Cooke]] Jerry Jasper Cooke was the third African American to serve on Rocky Mount’s Borad of Commissioners. He was born on June 11, 1860 to Bryant and Dilcy Cooke of Franklin and married Maggie M. Malone, on April 14,1886. The couple moved from Franklin County to the booming town of Rocky Mount during the 1890’s Fusion Decade in search of economic opportunity. In 1900, J.J. Cooke was elected Town Commissioner out of Rocky Mount’s 5th ward. The next year Cooke helped organize the Unity Cemetery Association, Inc. He was an original member of the Board of Trustees and he was elected its first president in 1902. He served only one term on the Town Board of Commissioners from May 1900 to May 1901. In 1904 the Cooke’s purchased property on N. Pearl Street near Gay Street. J.J. Cooke was a founding member of the North Carolina Knights of Giedons and an insurance agent for the organization. By 1907 the Cooke family had moved to New Bern, purchasing a home at 181 George Street, and Jerry continued building his insurance business. The Cooke’s quickly became an integral part of the local community. Jerry was ordained a Deacon at the First Colored Baptist Church of New Bern and Maggie sang solos at church and at local celebrations. She also actively supported the New Bern Collegiate Industrial Institution. Mr. Cooke died of a cerebral hemorrhage on June 24, 1913 in New Bern and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery. In 1915 Maggie Cooke sold her interest in her Pearl Street property in Rocky Mount to her brother Mansfield Malone for $100.00 while her son Sammanna retained his inherited one half interest. In 1922 a horrific fire swept through New Bern, destroying 1000 buildings and leaving 3000 people homeless, including the Cooke family. Maggie returned to live in Rocky Mount and In 1926 she bought her son’s one-half interest in the property on Pearl Street while Samanna remained in New Bern with his wife and children to rebuild his home and his insurance business. __________________ # [[William “Big Bill” Walters]] ![[big bill.png|350]] William Walters was the last of the early African American Town Commissioners to win election for the Ward 5 seat in May 1901 - and re-elected for a second term in May of 1902. But following statewide disenfranchisement -and the amendment to Rocky Mount’s Charter by the white rule legislature in 1901- there would not be another African American to serve in that capacity for 60 years. In 1897 the Town of Rocky Mount purchased a hand-drawn hook and ladder wagon and Rocky Mount’s African American Volunteer Fire Department was born. William “Big Bill '' Walters was foreman of Rocky Mount’s Excelstor Hook And Ladder Company, consisting of 25 firemen, and they joined the North Carolina Colored Volunteer Firemen’s Association, competing each year in contests across the state. In 1902 Big Bill’s team was disqualified at Raleigh because of an accident but in 1904 they brought home first prize and the $20 purse. Mr. William Walters was born in Edgecombe County in May 1870, the son of Virgil (born 1827) and Charlotte (born 1828) Walters of Whitakers who were both South Carolina natives. William was married to Henrietta Jones (born 1872) of Nash County, daughter of Columbus and Martha Jones, on December 23, 1891, in Rocky Mount by a justice of the peace. In 1906 William and Henrietta bought 410 Atlantic Avenue, a home built by the Rocky Mount Improvement and Manufacturing Company in 1892. Walters and his wife raised five children in the upper-class Cross Town neighborhood. For more than two decades, beginning in 1909, Walters held the prestigious position as Hotel Ricks’ porter. William died in Edgecombe County at age 66 on September 24, 1936, and is buried, along with his wife Henrietta, in Old Unity Cemetery. ![[ricks hotel.png]]