Rarely have I spent a more interesting afternoon than when I visited the Orange County Training School on the occasion of the county commencement last Thursday. The exhibits of sewing, embroidery, and cooking—the work of the children in the negro schools all over the county—were positively amazing in their variety and in the skill they reflected. The men and women of both races who have launched the negros upon this program of training are doing fine work and deserve the gratitude of the community.
Rugs made of gunny sacks, dyed in several colors, were one of the contributions made to the show by the Bethel school; and a second-grade pupil from this same school, Sherman Cates, had on view a rolling pin and butter paddles which he had fashioned cleverly from wood obtained in his own back yard. A tea cloth with little tea-kettles embroidered upon it, was the product of a girl in the first grade.
A training school here, and the schools of Terrell’s Creek, Oaks, High Rock, Cedar Grove, Efland, Morris Grove, Wardsville, Hillsboro, Rosemary, and Hairston Grove, exhibited dresses, aprons, lingerie, doilies, table cloths, napkins and pillow covers, all of them embroidered or otherwise ornamented. They were all exquisitely laundered. The frocks were of various materials, ranging from gingham to silk. Even the male eye could see that they were made from patterns of the latest mode, and I venture to say that many a shop of good reputation in a big city is offering for sale garments that are in no way superior to these.
G.E. Davis, who is connected with the state department of education and the Julius Rosenwald fund, made an address of an hour that held the interest from start to finish—and a speech of which that can be said I count a remarkable feature of a school commencement.
The negroes of North Carolina are now contributing $100,000 a year, out of their own pockets as voluntary contributions, toward the building of schools. In the last five years the Julius Rosenwald fund has chipped in $287,000 and the state and counties have put in more than $1 million. Including the schools now under construction or planned, in the last seven years 600 negro schools have been built in North Carolina. The trustees of the Rosenwald fund follow the policy of allotting money in proportion to the school construction activity of the state itself, and among the Southern states the largest allotment, $70,000, came to North Carolina last year. Mississippi, next in order, got $60,000.
The county commencement started off with the singing of the national anthem. There followed contests in story telling, declamation, singing, and spelling. In the afternoon came a baseball game; and at night an address by E.D. Mickle, the negro educator of Durham.
Prizes were awarded as follows:
Story-telling: Terrell Creek 1st, Orange County Training 2nd, Morris Grove 3rd.
Singing: O.C.T. 1st, Efland 2nd, Morris Grove 3rd.
Spelling: O.C.T. 1st, Wardsville 2nd.
Domestic Art: O.C.T. 1st, New Bethel 2nd, Rosemary 3rd.
Domestic Science: O.C.T. 1st, Hairston Grove 2nd.
Declamation, Hairston Grove 1st, Rosemary 2nd, O.C.T. 3rd.
From page 4 of the Chapel Hill Weekly, April 16, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073229/1925-04-16/ed-1/seq-4/#words=April+16%2C+1925
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