Western End

Samuel W. Starks (1866-1908) was a prominent community leader and the first African American state librarian in the U.S. He founded the West Virginia Grand Lodge of the Knights of Pythias in 1892, serving as grand chancellor and later national supreme chancellor, expanding membership from 10,000 to 150,000. Starks advocated for real estate acquisition to empower Black communities and held the state librarian position from 1901 until his death at 43. Three years later, the Knights of Pythias honored him with a 32-foot granite obelisk. Two governors attended the dedication.

Rebecca Bullard (1871-1945) and Sara Bullard (1873- 1958). The sisters were founding members with seven others of The Charleston Woman’s Improvement League established on January 20, 1898. The league’s motto was,  “Lifting as we climb.” The sisters were widely active in church and civic life. Rebecca, a teacher, was also a founder and later a director of the Mattie V. Lee Home for Colored Women. 

Corporal David Washington Kinney (1949-1969) was a lifelong resident of Charleston who attended Charleston High School  before enlisting in the military.  Kinney was killed in action in Vietnam one week before he was scheduled to leave for home and be discharged from the service. A road in Spring Hill Cemetery is named in his honor.

Mrs. Blanche Wade (1901 - 2006) grew up in a coal camp in West Virginia, facing racial harassment and leaving school in eighth grade. She moved to Charleston where she worked as a domestic servant before co-owning a beauty salon known for "Marcel Waves," learned by sneaking into a white salon after hours. In her 60s she joined boycotts against segregation in stores famously refusing to accept mistreatment at The Diamond Department Store. For her activism during the Civil Rights Movement, she received the Distinguished West Virginian Award from Governor Bob Wise.

Reverend Moses Newsome (1914 - 1971) was born in Ahoskie, North Carolina, and attended the Graduate School of Theology at Oberlin College. He became the pastor of First Baptist Church in 1941 and married Ruth Bass in 1942, with whom he had four children. Newsome envisioned the church as a community center and was a civil rights advocate, securing fair housing and job training for African Americans in Charleston. He held leadership positions in various organizations, including the Charleston Opportunities Industrialization Center and the West Virginia State Baptist Convention and served on multiple committees for employment and human rights. A close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, who he brought to Charleston, played a vital role in the civil rights movement, organizing sit-ins and marches for racial justice. His influence reached a national and international level. He attended the World Baptist Alliance in Tokyo in 1970.

Willard L. Brown (1911 -1978) was the son of Anderson Brown. He earned a bachelor’s degree from West Virginia State College and obtained a law degree from Boston University. Married to Juanita Jackson for 41 years, he became the first African American attorney to serve as a judge in a West Virginia court of record. Brown was the President of the Charleston NAACP from 1950 to 1966. He won many civil rights cases, often with T.G. Nutter at his side. He was the founder of the Charleston Human Rights Commission and served on the Charleston City Council for eight years after being elected in 1947. He was the sole Black member of the mayor’s Human Relations and Legal Redress Committees from 1957-1961.

James D. Randall (1922-2003) was a photographer and co-author with Anna Evans Gilmer of ‘Black Past’ that details much of the history of Black lives in the Kanawha Valley.

Benjamin Clyde Perkins, Jr. (1917-2006) was a World War II veteran and a Tuskegee Airman, honored posthumously by Senator Jay Rockefeller in 2005. Born in Ironton, Ohio, he grew up in Institute, West Virginia, graduating from Garnet High School where he met his wife, Kathryn Parker. They had two sons and two daughters. After the war, Perkins co-opened an Esso station before working for the United States Postal Service until retirement. A member of First Baptist Church in Charleston, he enjoyed fishing, hunting, and golfing.

Scipio (?-?) was an African prince who came to America as a slave. Owned by Colonel George William Summers who served on George Washington’s staff, he served as the colonel’s valet and was known as a man of unusual intelligence. The Summers family cemetery was moved from the Walnut Grove plantation, near Poca, when the John Amos Power Plant was built, to Charleston's Spring Hill in 1978. In death Scipio retained his place of honor, buried on one side of, Colonel Summers, with his wife on the other.