Wilson, Alexzine

Alexzine, the eldest daughter of John and Temple Wilson, who fled the family farm after the shootout on July 21, 1934. 

They carried all of the children, with Tempie and John Wilson, to the jail at Franklinton that is, all but Luther and Alexzine. They got away through the woods. They caught Luther the next day or so. Alexzine was in the woods, and a white neighbor went and got her, and carried her to his house, where they took care of her for several days. Then some colored man told the law where she was, and the officers came and got her." ... 

Outside the jail they put Jerome s body in an automobile. They drove out on the road toward John Wilson s home, and near there they threw the body—naked—into a ditch. When Alexzine was starting to catch the school bus next morning she saw a crowd at the cross-roads. Two white men stopped her. Don t go over there, they told her. Your brother is lying over there, dead. ... 

While John Wilson was in New Orleans, visiting his wife in Charity Hospital and talking with Horace Mann Bond at Dillard University, he left Alexzine, the eldest daughter, in charge of the younger children. ... 

The day soon came, however, when a white neighbor, Jim King— the man who had bought the old Wilson farm—told Alexzine that according to rumor a mob was planning to lynch the rest of the Wilson family. It would be best, he told her, if they left Washington Parish at once. A cousin hastened to New Orleans to warn John Wilson not to return. 

John Wilson died in April 1945 at the age of sixty-four. Alexzine returned to Washington Parish to bury him in the same community cemetery where Moise and Jerome were interred. At the graveside Alexzine met the woman who had been John Wilson s partner she felt grateful that someone had looked after her father in his declining years. Felton, however, only learned of his father s death when he returned from overseas service with the navy, long after the funeral. 

According to John Wilson the white neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Jim King, sheltered Alexzine at the home of their black tenants, Alfred and Melissa Magee. This accords with Alexzine Wilson s own recollection sixty years later. 

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. 

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

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