Henderson, Freddye

Henderson, Freddye S., April 10,1995. Wilson, Felton, June 28,1995 (telephone). Young, Alexzine Wilson, July 18,1995. 

In 1994 I was introduced to Julia W. Bond by our mutual friend Connie Curry. Prompted by Julian Bond, who knew that a lynching had occurred in a place called Star Creek, Louisiana, while his parents had been living there, I asked Mrs. Bond about her recollections of this event. Only then did I learn of the Bonds personal knowledge of Jerome Wilson s lynching, and of Horace Mann Bond s effort, sixty years earlier, to turn the history of the Wilson family into a book. Mrs. Bond also told me of her friendship with Freddye Henderson of Atlanta, who was a first cousin of Jerome Wilson. When finally I had the opportunity to go through Horace Mann Bond s papers, I read his... 

All the efforts of Horace Mann Bond to help the Wilsons proved unavailing, and after 1935 he lost touch with the family. Some twenty years later, however, after they had moved to Atlanta, the Bonds became friendly with Mrs. Freddye Henderson, who ran a successful travel agency that pioneered tours to Africa. More years passed before Julia, now widowed, discovered that Mrs. Henderson had grown up in Franklinton and was a first cousin of Jerome Wilson. With Mrs. Henderson s help, it became possible to locate John Wilson s surviving children and trace the history of the Wilson family since 1935. 

Mrs. Freddye E. Henderson, interviewed by Adam Fairclough, April 10, 1995, Atlanta Bond to W. P. Dabney, March zo, 1935, and Edwin Embree to Bond, June zo, 1935, part z, reel 30, Bond Papers. He mailed similar pleas to W. R. Banks, president of Prairie View College in Texas Estelle Massey Riddle, president of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and a Rosenwald Explorer in Calhoun, Louisiana Edwin Embree, president of the Rosenwald Fund and Will Alexander, head of the Farm Security Administration. 

Unless otherwise noted, the following account is taken from editor s interviews with Julia W. Bond, Freddye S. Henderson, Alexzine Wilson Young, and Felton Wilson. 

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