In Part One we focused on Stephens’s work as a principal and teacher in the Asheville City Schools and as the organizer and first general secretary of the Young Men’s Institute (YMI). In this new post, we’ll look at the events that led to Stephens’s departure from Asheville and the work he and his wife
This post begins the two-part story of Edward Stephens and his work in Asheville and other cities. Although Stephens wasn’t one of the original five black teachers when the Asheville public schools opened in January 1888, he came to the system two years later and made lasting contributions to the black community as a teacher,
Lenora T. Jackson 1859-1950 Leonora Tecumseh Jackson died in Asheville in 1950 at the age of 91. Her brief obituary mentioned the schools where she had taught and simply stated that she was “a teacher of 62 years.” Leonora was born in 1859 in Halifax County to Caroline Garrett and Andrew Jackson. She had two