County Superintendent Refuses to See Colored Man Who Is Providing $1,500 for School Buildings in Wilson County, Sept. 10, 1919

From The Daily Times, Wilson, N.C., Sept. 10, 1919

Declined to See Him

This morning when Prof. Charles H. Moore, a colored man and State Inspector of the colored schools and the agent for the Rosenwald fund that is helping to build school buildings for colored children in this state, and has spent some $1,500 on the school buildings of Wilson county was in the office of County Superintendent Coon with other parties, Mr. Coon told Moore he did not want to see him, and not to come in his office.

Prof. Moore, who has been connected with Tuskegee Institute and was vice president of Colored Industrial School at Greensboro, gives us the following version of the affair. He says that in connection with his work as inspector of the colored schools of the state and as agent of the Rosenwald fund together with Prof. Clinton J. Calloway, director of the Eastern department of Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala., and Prof. Newbold, who is also looking after the colored schools of the state, he came over here today to inspect the colored schools of the county and the buildings which have been erected with the aid of the Rosenwald fund.

Mr. Newbold said he made an appointment for ?? to see Mr. Coon, and this morning before they met Mr. Newbold that he and Prof. Galloway went to Mr. Coon’s office and when they ?? there they found Mr. Coon out. They asked two gentlemen who were in the office if Messrs. Coon and Newbold were in and receiving a reply in the negative, and that Mr. Coon was expected at any moment, they set their valises down in a corner and remarked they would return in a few moments. Starting out Moore espied Mr. Coon, and turning to Galloway he remarked there is Mr. Coon now. Mr. Coon looked at him and said, “I don’t care to see you,” and he added, “Furthermore, I want you to leave my office.”

Moore says that he replied, “All right,” and departed. Later seeing Mr. Newbold he related the circumstances to him, and when Prof. Newbold asked him to return to Prof. Coon’s office he declined so to do.

Later Prof. Newbold, Galloway and J.D. Reid went off in a car on their inspection of the colored school buildings of the county.

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Julius Rosenwald was a multimillionaire Jewish merchant and one of the founders of Sears, Roebuck and Company. He donated funds to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and set aside money that for 25 years was used to help build public schools in the South for Negro students. To read more about this work, see https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/rosenwald-fund-schools-1912-1932/