Father Edward Wahl
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Rev. James Spratt White

Father Edward Wahl, also, Rev. James Spratt White. Freedom Walkway. , Father Edward Wahl , Quiet Leader, for All God's Children, In August of 1935, 18-year-old Edward Wahl Was one of 22 Catholic seminarians who came to Rock Hill from New York City to start the Oratory Community and to support the Sisters of Mercy and reopening the areas first interracial hospital., Wahl witnessed firsthand with Jim Crow era of the South and found that Blacks, immigrants , as well as minority relations, including Catholic, Jews, and other non-Protestants , or discriminated against. The experience had a profound effect on his life. After returning to his home in New York in 1942 to complete his education and becoming a priest, he returned to Rock Hill to pursue his life's work., His new assignments included visiting the sick and needy of Black and White families alike. Wahl stood up for minority citizens who were fired or relegated to the lowest jobs, citizens denied the opportunity to shop in certain stores or otherwise denied equal participation in the civic life of Rock Hill., Father Edward help found St. Mary's Catholic Church in the heart of a Black neighborhood along Crawford Road. It was the first local church built specifically two accommodate people of every race. He raised $17,000 for its construction in 1947, equivalent to $285,000 today. St. Mary's continues today as a model of a diverse faith community., Wahl established a Crawford Road Federal Credit Union, French enabled people of lower incomes to obtain loans at portable rates. He assisted the unemployment and finding jobs, and he led voter-registration drives. Under his leadership, social clubs for created for African American youth, and before Blacks had a movie theater of their own, held weekly showings of "Hollywood" movies. He helped integrate interracial support programs, which later were integrated into Rock Hill parks and recreation department., Although he was away from Rock Hill serving as a chaplain during the Korean War, There was no doubt that he inspired the decision to merge the parish schools of St. Mary and St. Anne Catholic churches in 1954, resulting in the first interracial school in South Carolina history. , Father Edward was instrumental and relocating Italian refugees in York to farm, and later his church would sponsor Vietnamese refugees to resettle in Rock Hill., To this day, Father Edward Wahl's influence resonates today and programs he helped establish, such as the Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen and in the lives of countless people served by members of the Oratory Community, including his two younger brothers, Father Richard and Father Joseph, who followed ham to Rock Hill., Father Wahl spent virtually his entire life championing social justice for all citizens of your county. He died in 1995, at 78., Rev. James Spratt White , Impassioned Opponent of Lynching, Between 1880 and 1920, African Americans accused of offenses against White people often were taken by force from public custody by angry mobs of White men, tortured and killed. York County witnessed at least nine such lynchings during this period law enforcement officials often were powerless in the face of the lawbreakers. Citizens who may have opposed the lynchings remain silent for fear of retribution., In January 1889, sheriff's deputies arrested three Black men suspected of the brutal murder of a White store owner that occurred at Catawba Junction, about 7 miles southeast of Rock Hill. Suspects were taken to Rock Hill for preliminary hearing before a magistrate, who ordered the men held at the county jail in Yorkville (now York) to await trial. A constable was charged with transporting the men by train to Yorkville. En route to the train station, the constable and prisoners were confronted by a group of vigilantes from Catawba Junction, seeking to lynch the prisoners. The Constable and his prisoners were treated to the Rock Hill guard house. Over the next several hours, the crowd swell to more than 300 vigilantes and spectators. , Into this setting came Rev. James Spratt White, a local Presbyterian minister. According to newspaper reports. White showed no fear. He mounted a wagon and "harangued them [on] behalf of law and order. He convinced the crowd that lynch law was wrong; that these red-handed wretches deserved a fair trial, and it was there duty to let the law take its course.", Like air slowly let out of a balloon, passions of the mob were deflated. After the Rev. White finished his appeal, the crowd dispersed. Violence had been averted, and the three suspects were transferred to Yorkville to await trial., By confronting the Lynch mob, the Rev. James Spratt White Stuart for the rule of law during one of the most tumultous and hateful periods of South Carolina history. He's successfully opposed the angry mob, in part no doubt, because of his commanding oratory but also because of the respect earned from an exemplary life as minister and civic leader., Newspaper headlines of the time praised White as "A Worthy Example" of a man who put his beliefs into practice, even at the risk of his own safety period., Learn more: www.freedomwalkway.com