Praising the Past

A Historical Quest

By Philip J. Merrill

The articles that I have submitted to Port of Harlem have been usually snapshots of some little-known aspect of African American history. For this issue, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to readers to know how I develop these snapshots.

It all starts with the Nanny Jack archives - a large and disparate collection that I have amassed over the years. The archives contain all sorts of artifacts from the African American past - photos, letters, diplomas and other ephemera that tell stories about the lives of many people, most of whom have been long since forgotten. It is my mission to make sure we remember them.

I usually start by focusing on artifacts that I have not yet researched. For instance, over a decade ago I acquired a collection of about 75 letters, 56 photos and other items pertaining to a single family and dating back to the World War I era. Since I acquired this collection, it has languished in my archives. Time now to start getting to know this family, I thought.

From the letters I learned that the family hailed from Nathalie, Virginia, a small town in Halifax County about 115 miles southwest of Richmond. My curiosity was piqued by an ancestor the letter identified - Sydnor Jennings.

The first stop in my quest for information about Sydnor was the Internet. After a little digging, I found a living descendant - one La Vinia Delois Jennings, Sydnor's great-granddaughter. I sent her an email, and to my delight, she responded with a telephone call! La Vinia is a college professor, an accomplished author and an abundant source of information on Sydnor, who it turns out, left quite a legacy in Halifax County. He is very much the sort of African American figure who deserves to have historians tell his story.

The next stop on my journey was the South Boston-Halifax County Museum of Fine Arts and History where I spoke by telephone with Director Beth Coates. She was excited by my quest and promised to help with the research. Within minutes of hanging up, she emailed me an article by Sydnor Jennings' daughter, Lucy Dora Jennings Easley Coleman. Lucy died in 2002 at the age of 105. Had I started my inquiry a few years earlier, I might have been able to interview her in person!
From Lucy's article, I learned that Sydnor had started a school in Nathalie. She wrote, “The school started because my father … believed that everyone should have the opportunity to become educated. He did not have the opportunity to receive an education when he was a young man, but wanted to make sure that his children and others had this opportunity. This was the main reason why he worked very hard with the school board to establish an elementary school in our community."

My next stop was the Sydnor Jennings Elementary School in Nathalie, named after Sydnor in honor of his pioneering work for the education of African American children. The school's principal, David Duffer, was extremely receptive and interested in sharing information about the namesake of his school. He also told me that the Green Valley School that had been across the road from the Jennings School was a Rosenwald school (schools built by The Rosewald Fund primarily for African-Americans in the early twentieth century in the American South.) - a bonus prize for me, as I am always looking to learn more about the Rosenwald schools.

My journey is not completed yet, but it is off to a promising start. Not every quest for history finds such willing helpers as this one has so far. But with a little sweat and a lot of digging, more stories like Sydnor's can - and should - be told.

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