Figure 1.-- This is classroom scene at the Berry O'Kelly Training School, a teacher training school. It looks to have been taken about 1920. O'Kelly was a former slave and sucessful businessman. In his later years, he took a special interest in eduvation. We do not know if this is O'Kelly teaching the class.

Berry O'Kelly was an African American business man and philanthropist. He was born about 1861/64 in Orange County, North Carolina, so in the early years of his life he was a slave, but probably too young to understand that. He of course would have understand the injustices of the segregated South as he grew up. The family moved Wake County to live with some relatives who had been among the first settlers of Method, a small post-Civil War community West of Raleigh. He grew up there. He became a busnessman. His first job was in a general store in the village, but saved his money and soomn bought the general store. Next he purchased the small general store. He succeeded in bringing a railroad spur to the small village, starting a trans-Atlantic mercantile and warehouse and eventually got into banking. He was a great admiree of Booket T. Washington and wanted to purseue charitable endevors along with his business success. He established the Berry O'Kelly Training School, a school for African-Americans. He began by converting the small village, one room primary school house into a secondary school, a teacher training and boarding school for black students. The boarding school was one of the first rural high schools for African Americans in North Carolina. The Manufacturer's Record newspaper acclaimed the school at Method as the finest training school in the entire South (1917). He help the school obtain accreditation (1922/23), the school became one of only three fully accredited African American high schools in North Carolina.

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Created: 10:32 PM 9/5/2018
Last updated: 10:32 PM 9/5/2018