Black History Month

Take Southpor t’s African American History Tour

Events at the Southport Historical Society This Month

“This February, the Southport Historical Society o ers several programs relating to Black History Month,” President Liz Fuller says. “This is our 10th annual Brunswick County Black History Symposium.” All programs are free, on Zoom, and open to the public. Email info@southporthistoricalsociety.org for the Zoom links.

Feb. 8, 1 p.m. Southport Second Tuesday Talk: Ms. Cora Lee Green

Southport Historical Society Board member Donnie Joyner will talk about Southport native and 1954 Brunswick County Training graduate Cora Lee, who was trained as a nurse and was recognized for being a leader of the community. Cora Lee was the rst woman to become a member of the Brunswick County Community College’s Board of Trustees.

Feb. 25 – 27. 10th Annual 3-Day Brunswick County Black History Symposium

Day 1, 6 p.m. – Ms. Carolyn Evans will portray Mrs. Mamie Mobley in a one-woman performance entitled “A Mother’s Cry for Justice.” Day 2, 3 p.m. – Donnie Joyner presents Dr. Willie Evelyn Reaves Turpin, DDS, “from tobacco elds to academia.” 4 p.m. –USCT Battery B Reenactors. Two local men who served in the USCT during the Civil War are buried at John N. Smith Cemetery in Southport. Day 3, 3 p.m. – Gospel Fest hosted by

Gwen Wearren

African Americans have been central to life in Brunswick County for centuries. You can learn more about the contributions these citizens made by following a self-guided tour of significant African American historic sites in Southport.

Take a drive during Black History month to visit some illuminating sites and learn some history that may have been left out of your schoolbooks. Go to bit.ly/31EfzHw to find the Pocket Sites Tour. It’s designed to be used with an app, but you can also follow along at the website.

A Drive through History

“The Southport African American History Tour was developed several years ago in conjunction with the installation of our African American Education Exhibit at the free Ft. Johnston Southport Museum and Visitor Center,” says Liz Fuller, president of the Southport Historical Society.

“The Pocket Sites tour highlights 17 significant locations in Black history, including churches, cemeteries, and local businesses that were prevalent during the Jim Crow era of legalized segregation,” Fuller says.

Learning About Learning

The tour includes sites such as the Brunswick County Training School (BCT), 701 N. Lord Street, which was the only Black school in Brunswick County to go above the eighth grade until the 1950s. It was not integrated until

All photos courtesy Southport Historical Society Brunswick County Training School, the only high school to admit African American students un l the 1950s, is a site on the Southport African American History Tour.

Students pose for posterity at Brunswick County Training School in Southport, which closed in 1972. Many graduates went on to higher educa on and dis nguished careers.

1970. Brunswick County Community College now stands on the site.

Any African American student in the county who wanted to go to high school attended here. And students from outside Southport would stay with local families during the week in order to obtain their education.

The school cost more than $11,000 to build in 1924. Southport's African American community raised half the money. The rest was paid for by a combination of public funds, donations by the white community and a grant from the Rosenwald Foundation (which helped build schools for African American pupils across the South).

The first graduating class was in 1929. It consisted of one pupil, Bertha Bryant. Over the next 40-plus years, numerous students followed in Bryant’s footsteps. The final class graduated in 1972. Many BCT graduates went on to attend college and had distinguished careers in education, business, government, and the military.