1930-1954

Under his leadership, the State Normal School became a four-year college - at first renamed Fayetteville State Teachers College, now Fayetteville State University.

Dr. James Ward Seabrook served as dean at the State Normal School for 11 years before becoming its president in 1933, succeeding Dr. E.E. Smith. By 1939, the college had eight new brick buildings and had received state and regional accreditation.

After retiring from Fayetteville State in 1956, Seabrook served for one year as president of his alma mater, Johnson C. Smith University. In 1961, he became the first black member of the North Carolina Employment Security Commission, appointed by Gov. Terry Sanford.

When asked by a black officer why his son couldn't attend the Fort Bragg Dependent School, Principal Mildred B. Poole didn't have a good answer. So she proceeded to make the moves necessary to integrate the school.

Largely because of Poole's initiative, black children started attending the federal school system on Fort Bragg in 1951 - the first integrated public school system in the South.

Poole also hired the first black teacher in 1951.

Integration at Fort Bragg drew national attention. And the strong-willed Mildred Poole said she thought her moves ultimately caused her to lose her job at Fort Bragg in 1956.

But with integration, she said, "I just did what my spirit told me was right and what I knew I had to do."

She remained active for years as an educator and community volunteer. She was the first president of the Cross Creek Garden Club, in 1937, and served again as president in 1987. She and her husband, C. Parker Poole, were charter members of Snyder Memorial Baptist Church in 1949.

"Huske Revivified A River." That was the headline on a 1963 editorial recalling the tireless efforts of William O. "Billy" Huske to have a third lock and dam built to revitalize commercial traffic between Wilmington and Fayetteville along the Cape Fear River.

The William O. Huske Lock and Dam at the Cumberland-Bladen line, completed in 1936, is evidence of his success.

Huske was credited for his leadership in the river project along with Congressman J. Bayard Clark, Charles R. Wilson, Oscar P. Breece, A.E. Dixon and others.

Huske was a World War I veteran. He was wounded and gassed while fighting on the Western Front.

He and other family members operated Huske Hardware House. Among other civic work, he served on the State Ports Authority and helped lead the drive for locating a Veterans Administration hospital in Fayetteville.

Anne Chesnutt High School opened for black students in grades eight through 11 in 1939 - named in honor of Anne Chesnutt Waddell, "supervisor of county education for Negro schools."

There was a great need for the new school off Raeford Road (now Anne Chesnutt Middle School). Before it opened, black high school students west of the Cape Fear River were bused for several miles to the Cumberland County Training School (named Armstrong High School in 1939) east of the river.

Anne Chesnutt Waddell served as a schools supervisor for 20 years, until 1936. Before that, she was a teacher in the county schools for 14 years.

She was a half sister of author Charles W. Chesnutt.

U.S. troops during World War II had an urgent need for camouflage netting to help them hide from air attacks.

Ed Brower of Hope Mills was the man to get the job done. That was just one of his many tasks as the head of the textile division of the federal War Production Board: He helped manage all production and coordinate the military's textile goods needs.

Brower was one of President Franklin Roosevelt's "Dollar-A-Year" men, the executives who were paid just a dollar to serve their country.

Edwin Neil Brower was the president of Rockfish Mills and Brower Mills and a director of Dixie Yarns. He served as mayor of Hope Mills and is credited with paving the small town's first street, Main Street.

He donated land for a town golf course and for a park that is now Brower Park.

Brower served as chairman of the State Board of Public Welfare and president of the North Carolina Textile Association. He was a founding board member of Cape Fear Valley Hospital.