610 Graduates and 72 Years of Determination

What Lincoln School’s Graduation Records Reveal

A spreadsheet may appear to be nothing more than rows, columns, and numbers. But when those numbers represent graduates of Lincoln School, every cell holds part of a much larger human story.

Our compiled records document Lincoln graduates by year and gender from 1885 through 1956. Across those 72 years, the spreadsheet records 610 young people who completed their education at Wheeling’s school for African American students.

They graduated during segregation. They graduated through periods of war, economic depression, social upheaval, and profound national change. They entered a society that restricted where Black Americans could live, work, study, travel, and participate fully as citizens.

Still, they graduated.

Every number in this record represents a student who crossed a stage, received a diploma, and stepped forward carrying the hopes of a family and community.

From Four Graduates to a Growing Legacy

The record begins in 1885 with a graduating class of four: two boys and two girls.

The earliest classes were often very small. During the school’s first decades, graduating classes commonly contained fewer than six students. Some years recorded no graduates at all.

Between 1885 and 1920, Lincoln produced 90 graduates. That total may seem modest, but its historical meaning is immense. These students pursued secondary education when few Black Americans had access to it and when public education for African American children in West Virginia was still developing.

A class of two or three graduates was not insignificant. Each diploma represented persistence against formidable odds.

Beginning in the 1920s, Lincoln’s graduating classes started to grow. The school recorded classes of 10 graduates in both 1921 and 1925. During the 1930s, the numbers rose substantially, with 133 graduates recorded across the decade.

The 1940s became the most productive full decade in the spreadsheet, with 196 graduates. Classes of 18, 19, 20, and more became increasingly common.

The growth reflects generations of families placing their faith in education. It also reflects the work of Lincoln’s teachers, administrators, churches, parents, and community leaders who encouraged young people to remain in school and complete the difficult journey to commencement.

A Puzzling Period from 1902 to 1911

One period in the data stands out and raises an important historical question.

From 1902 through 1911, Lincoln recorded only nine graduates in total: four boys and five girls. No graduating class during that 10-year period contained more than two students.

The spreadsheet records two graduates in 1902, one in 1903, and two in 1904. No graduates are recorded in 1905, 1906, or 1907. One student graduated in 1908, none in 1909, one in 1910, and two in 1911.

This means that four of those 10 years had no recorded graduates at all.

Why did Lincoln’s graduation numbers fall so dramatically during this period?

At present, we do not know.

The data tells us what happened, but it does not explain why. The decline could reflect changes in enrollment, economic pressures on Black families, students leaving school for employment, population movement, illness, changes in the school’s organization, gaps in the surviving records, or several factors working together. These are possibilities for further research, not conclusions.

That distinction matters. Historical integrity requires us to acknowledge what the evidence reveals and remain equally honest about what it does not.

The low graduation numbers from 1902 through 1911 should not be treated as an empty space in Lincoln’s story. They represent a historical phenomenon worthy of investigation. School board minutes, newspapers, census records, city directories, employment records, and family histories may eventually help us understand what occurred.

Even within this period of exceptionally low numbers, nine students completed their education. Their achievement may have required an extraordinary degree of persistence precisely because so few reached commencement beside them.

Until we know more, the decline remains both a mystery and an invitation: a reminder that historical data often answers one question while opening the door to many others.

The Extraordinary Presence of Black Women

One of the most striking findings in the data is the number of female graduates.

Of the 610 graduates recorded, 373 were girls and 237 were boys. Female students therefore accounted for approximately 61 percent of all Lincoln graduates in the spreadsheet.

Among the 64 years in which at least one graduation was recorded, girls outnumbered boys in 41 of them. Boys outnumbered girls in 16 years, while the remaining seven classes were evenly divided.

Those figures deserve our attention.

For Black women, education offered one of the most important paths toward professional opportunity, independence, leadership, and community service. Yet these young women faced the combined restrictions of racism and sexism. Their ambitions unfolded in a society that frequently limited both the occupations open to them and the authority they were permitted to exercise.

Despite those barriers, generations of Black girls completed their education at Lincoln.

They became teachers, nurses, office professionals, musicians, entrepreneurs, church leaders, mothers, mentors, and community builders. Their diplomas strengthened not only their own futures but also the lives of the families and institutions they would go on to support.

The data does not tell us every place they went or everything they accomplished. It does, however, reveal the remarkable consistency of their educational achievement.

Year after year, Black young women crossed Lincoln’s commencement stage in significant numbers.

The Largest Graduating Class

The largest graduating class in the spreadsheet appeared in 1945, when Lincoln awarded diplomas to 32 students: nine boys and 23 girls.

That class graduated during one of the most consequential years in modern history. The Second World War was coming to an end, and Americans were beginning to imagine what peace might bring.

For Lincoln’s graduates, however, victory abroad did not mean equality at home.

Segregation remained in place, and Black veterans and civilians continued to face discrimination throughout American life.

Against that background, 32 African American students completing high school in Wheeling represented a powerful achievement. They entered the postwar world educated, prepared, and determined to claim a place in the nation they had helped sustain.

The 1945 class was not an isolated high point. Lincoln graduated 24 students in 1943, 23 in 1947, and 22 in both 1951 and 1953. In 1954, the school again graduated 24 students.

These figures show a school producing a steady stream of educated Black men and women during the final decades of legally segregated education.

The Class of 1950

For our Foundation, one year in the spreadsheet carries special meaning.

Lincoln’s Class of 1950 included 18 graduates: eight boys and 10 girls. Among them was my grandmother, Beverly Pervall, who later married fellow Lincoln alumnus Eugene Stradwick. Together, they became the namesakes of the Eugene and Beverly Stradwick Heritage Foundation.

In the spreadsheet, Beverly is represented as part of a total. The yearbook allows us to see more.

It tells us that she served as a class officer, participated in school life, became a cheerleader, attended business college, and was expected by her classmates to display her knowledge in a “high class office.”

This is why combining historical records matters. A spreadsheet can reveal the broad pattern. A yearbook can restore personality. A photograph can give us a face. A family story can return a voice.

Together, these sources transform a number into a life.

Beverly was one of 18 graduates in 1950, but she was also an ambitious young woman with friends, responsibilities, talents, and dreams. The same is true of every student represented in this data.

What the Numbers Cannot Tell Us

Historical data is powerful, but we must also recognize its limits.

The spreadsheet cannot fully explain why some classes were large and others contained only one or two students. It cannot tell us why some years had no recorded graduates. It does not identify those who began high school but could not complete it because of employment, illness, relocation, family obligations, military service, financial hardship, or other circumstances.

The numbers also cannot describe the joy of commencement day, the pride of parents, the influence of a favorite teacher, or the courage required to continue when the path became difficult.

Those stories must come from yearbooks, newspapers, school records, photographs, oral histories, and families.

The data gives us a framework. The community can help us fill it with human experience.

Every Graduate Was a Milestone

By the end of the record in 1956, Lincoln had produced 610 documented graduates.

That total includes generations of students who pursued education while America denied them equal treatment. They studied in segregated classrooms but refused to accept segregated expectations for their lives.

They went forward as educated Black citizens who helped strengthen Wheeling and communities far beyond it.

Some became widely known. Many built lives of accomplishment without ever appearing in a history book. They raised families, served their country, practiced professions, opened businesses, taught children, supported churches, and created opportunities for the generations that followed.

Their collective achievement cannot be measured by fame.

It can be measured in persistence.

It can be measured in the 373 young women and 237 young men whose graduations are recorded.

It can be measured in the four students of 1885, the nine graduates who persevered between 1902 and 1911, the 32 students of 1945, the 18 students of 1950, and every class between and after them.

Each graduate was a milestone.

Each diploma was a declaration that Black minds deserved to be educated, Black ambitions deserved to be encouraged, and Black futures deserved to be built.

Help Us Restore the Stories Behind the Data

The spreadsheet gives us the numbers. Our next responsibility is to recover the people and understand the historical forces behind the patterns.

Who were these 610 graduates? Where did they go after Lincoln? What professions did they enter? What families and institutions did they help build? What happened during the unusually quiet graduation years from 1902 through 1911?

The Eugene and Beverly Stradwick Heritage Foundation invites Lincoln families and members of the community to help us answer those questions.

If you have a diploma, photograph, yearbook, commencement program, newspaper clipping, letter, school record, or family story connected to a Lincoln graduate, please consider sharing it with us.

A name in a record is the beginning of a story. A gap in the record is the beginning of a question.

Together, we can preserve the stories and continue searching for the answers.

-T

Historical Terminology Note

This article includes historical terms such as “colored” and “Negro” when quoting original sources or identifying organizations as they were known at the time. These terms reflect the language and racial conditions of their era; their inclusion is not an endorsement of their use today. In our own narrative, we use Black and African American, as appropriate. We preserve historical wording to document the past faithfully while honoring the dignity, humanity, and experiences of the people whose stories we share.