Front Page of the Ebony Images Yearbook in 1977.

Digital NC is happy to announce the new additions of the Ebony Images Yearbook from the Black Student Movement at UNC-Chapel Hill. The yearbooks include the years 1977 and 1978. From organizations to the black faculty, the Ebony Images Yearbook gave a glimpse into the lives of black students and faculty on the campus of UNC.

Black Ink was a newspaper written for and by black students on the campus of UNC. Here is a snapshot of the organization in the 1977 Ebony Images Yearbook.

The Black Student Movement on the campus of UNC is a well-known organization that has been around since 1967.  Founded on a mission to embrace a culture distinct from the dominant culture at UNC, the goals of the Black Student Movement are to strive for the continued existence of unity among all its members, to voice the concerns and grievances of its members to the University, to offer outlets for expressing Black ideals and culture and to ensure that the Black Student Movement members never lose contact with the Black Community.

Still active today, you can learn more about the Black Student Movement at UNC by checking out their website here.

To see other materials from UNC-Chapel Hill, check out their partner page.

Mrs. Ruth Wiley, June 19, 1985.

Thanks to our partner, Rockingham County Public Library, batches containing various materials including Madison-Mayodan High School yearbooks, newspaper clippings of school classes, a hand-written history of The Black Community Heritage of Madison, and 14 issues spanning 1947 to 1997 of Rockingham County’s magazine The Advisor are now available on our website.

One highlight from this batch is the hand-written history of The Black Community Heritage of Madison. Although the material includes history of Black individuals in Madison from around the first recorded migration (~June of 1775), it focuses more heavily on after the Civil War. The work is split up into major topics such as churches, businesses, education, and civic organizations. 

In the education section, the document traces the beginning of the Madison Public School System to Mary Black Franklin. Franklin began teaching members of the community in her home and in other various places in the community that would allow her to use the space. The number of students she taught continued to grow until the first public school was founded in a two room building. Eventually, a larger building later named the “Old Hall” was purchased to give the school more space. The school was only in operation six months out of the year. Students were allowed to attend the first three months of school for free, but parents would have to pay a tax for their children to finish the final three months. This system led to the creation of the Madison Public School System.

To learn more about the Rockingham County Public Library, please visit their website.

For more yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit our yearbook collection.

To view more content from Rockingham County Public Library, please visit here.

Band and Science Club, Scholastic [1961].

DigitalNC is happy to announce that 5 yearbooks from P.S. Jones High School have joined our digital yearbook collection courtesy of our new partners at P. S. Jones Alumni, Inc. These yearbooks span the years 1958 to 1968.

Miss P.S. Jones High, Yellow Jacket [1958].

Located in Washington, NC, P.S. Jones High School was originally named Washington Colored Public School and was a Black public high school. The first iteration of Washington Colored Public School consisted of three detached structures that served primary, elementary, and high school students. Washington Colored Public School’s first class graduated in 1926. In 1950, Professor Professor Peter Simon Jones, a beloved teacher who taught at the school for 22 years, passed away. The community decided to rename the school P.S. Jones High School in his honor. The school disbanded in 1968 due to the integration of Washington City Schools (PS Jones High School Alumni). Today, P.S. Jones Middle School continues to carry the P.S. Jones name into the future. The yearbooks available on DigitalNC show the final decade of P.S. Jones High School, depicting the students, school clubs, sports teams, and more.

To view all five yearbooks, click here. To learn more about the history of P.S. Jones High School, please visit the P.S. Jones Alumni, Inc. website. Be sure to check out the virtual materials on the P. S. Jones African-American Education Museum as well!

References:

PS Jones High School Alumni. “Pave the Way” Buy a Brick. https://polarengraving.com/psjoneshighschoolalumni

Farewell, The Clock Tower [1970]

The North Carolina School for the Deaf was founded in 1891 in Morganton, NC, located in the western part of the state. In a move to separate hearing impaired students from vision impaired students, whom all had a place under one school in Raleigh that went by the demeaning name of the North Carolina Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, funds were established for the school at Morganton. The first brick laid for the school (with a name close to it’s sister school; the North Carolina School for the Deaf and Dumb) was by two future pupils, Maggie LeGrand and Robert C. Miller, on May 16, 1892. Doors were opened to 100 pupils on October 2, 1894. In 1907, the name officially changed to The North Carolina School for the Deaf (Class Book, images 17-18).

Graduating class, Class of 1915

Funds from the state’s building program and a W.P.A. grant in the early 1940s allowed the school to construct cold storage, fencing, barns, a poultry house, playgrounds, an athletic field, as well as renovate school buildings to be properly fireproofed and ventilated (The Deaf Carolinian, image 22). Fast-forward to 1965, and the school has a large campus, with buildings both original and new.

Arial view of the campus made in 1965, The Clock Tower [1970].

References:

North Carolina School for the Deaf. Class Book, Class of 1934 North Carolina School for the Deaf. https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/237179?ln=en#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=17&r=0&xywh=77%2C118%2C2410%2C1464

North Carolina School for the Deaf. The Deaf Carolinian. https://lib.digitalnc.org/record/237183#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=21&r=0&xywh=455%2C2058%2C2900%2C1762

Thanks to our partner, Rowan Public Library, Boyden High School and Livingstone College yearbooks are now available on our website. This batch includes yearbooks from 1941 for Boyden High School and 1930, 1946-1947 for Livingstone College.

Livingstone College is a historically Black college located in Salisbury, North Carolina. In 1879, the college was founded by the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church and was just a single building on 40 acres of land. In 1887,  the school was renamed from Zion Wesley College to Livingstone College in honor of David Livingstone—a philanthropist, explorer, and Christian missionary. Today, the college consists of more than 15 buildings on over 300 acres of land with over a thousand enrolled students. 

In 1904, Salisbury High School was founded in to educate children of the area. Twenty-two years after its founding, in 1926, the school’s name changed to Boyden High School after a new school building was built. The school remained Boyden for almost 50 years until the name was reverted back to Salisbury High School in 1971. 

To learn more about Rowan Public Library, please visit their website.

To view our North Carolina African American high school yearbooks, visit our African American high schools collection.

For more yearbooks from across North Carolina, visit our yearbook collection.