» Embedded in Beaufort
This post is written by Nate Hubler, the Avery Research Center’s Liberatory Legacies Archival Fellow, who started in this position in February 2024. She will contribute blog posts about the collections she is processing through the grant.
Winfred Kent Alston, the youngest of five children, was born on June 27, 1911, in Summerville, South Carolina. He attended Alston Elementary and Graded School, built on land donated by his uncle, Dr. Julius Alston. After completing the ninth grade, his mother, Mary Kent Alston, arranged for him to finish his high school education and begin his undergraduate studies at South Carolina State College. He completed his B.S. in Education in 1935.
After graduation, he taught at Fairfax Elementary School for a year and began his graduate studies at Cornell University. His graduate studies only lasted a year, as he put the program on hold and returned to South Carolina when his mother became ill. He had every intention of returning to Cornell to complete his studies, but in 1937, he accepted a position as the principal of Robert Smalls High School in Beaufort, South Carolina, and the school became his life’s work.
W. K. Alston’s life and legacy fit the mold of the tireless public servant people often envision when thinking of the teachers and administrators who staff schools. His dedication to the school and the larger Beaufort community only grew larger during his twenty-five-year career as a principal. He was always willing to take on more responsibilities if it would benefit students. For example, he drove the school bus for two and a half years, so that money that would have been needed to pay a bus driver could be used to buy the bus outright.1
His accomplishments at Robert Smalls High School were numerous. They included installing lights in all the classrooms of what would become the Junior High School, purchasing the first movie projector in the county for visual education, building the first athletic field for night games in the southeast, modernizing the home economics department, and establishing a typing class. He also established the first African American Boy Scout Troop and high school band in Beaufort County.2
Another priority was bringing prominent African American artists, musicians, and educators to Robert Smalls High School to perform and talk with the students. Among the many people and groups that he brought to Beaufort were the Wings Over Jordan Choir, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, Paul Robeson, Joe Louis, Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown, the Harlem Globe Trotters, and Marian Anderson.3
In 1961, Alston began to feel ill and was admitted to Savannah Memorial Hospital to be treated for kidney issues. After a month, he was discharged and feeling much better, but shortly after his discharge, Mayme Eady Alston, his wife, noticed him acting strangely while they were traveling to Summerville. She insisted that they stop at McClennan-Banks Hospital so he could see her mom’s doctor. After undergoing surgery at the hospital, he was diagnosed with gastric cancer and given one month to live due to the extent it had spread beyond his stomach.
However, upon waking up from a week-long coma after the surgery, Alston was resolute that Jesus had given him one more year to live and shortly after announced to the community that he would retire as principal in June 1962. 4
Alston retired in June 1962, only after the senior class had their commencement ceremony and the summer break had started. The May issue of the school newspaper, The General, honored Alston and wrote about his accomplishments during his twenty-five-year tenure as principal.5 After retiring, he was sent letters of congratulations and well wishes for a happy retirement from community members, former students, friends, and colleagues across the country. Alston passed away on September 6, 1962, a few months after his retirement.
Most of the information in this blog post is sourced from a manuscript titled Memories of a Man and His Works: A Peep into the Past of W. Kent Alston and His Years at Robert Smalls High School, written by Mayme Eady Alston. Mayme was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and graduated from the Avery Normal Institute in 1932. The couple married in 1942 and had three children: W. Kent II, Mary Sherryl, and Sylvia Louise. Beyond the incredible detail of Alston’s life in the manuscript and the hundreds of photographs included, what is most striking is how Mayme’s abundant love for her husband is present throughout the text. It serves as not only a powerful testament to his accomplishments and their Beaufort community but also to the love they had for one another.
The Winfred Kent Alston papers are open to the public for research. We encourage everyone to review the finding aid and schedule an appointment to visit!
Footnotes
- Mayme Alston, Memories of a Man and His Works: A Peep into the Past of W. Kent Alston and His Years at Robert Smalls High School (1987), p. 17. ↩︎
- Ibid., p. 19-20. ↩︎
- Ibid., p. 24. ↩︎
- Ibid., p. 26. ↩︎
- The General, May 1962 issue, Winfred Kent Alston papers in Various Small Collections, Box 7, Folder 6, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. ↩︎
Image Citations
Mayme Alston, Memories of a Man and His Works: A Peep into the Past of W. Kent Alston and His Years at Robert Smalls High School (1987), p. 71.
National Youth Administration Officials, 1940, Winfred Kent Alston papers in Various Small Collections, Box 7, Folder 4, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.
Robert Smalls Day Program,1942, Winfred Kent Alston papers in Various Small Collections, Box 7, Folder 2, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.
Mayme Alston, Memories of a Man and His Works: A Peep into the Past of W. Kent Alston and His Years at Robert Smalls High School (1987), p. 279.
Ibid., p. 189.
Ibid., p. 188.
Signed photo of Marian Anderson and accompanist, 1956, Winfred Kent Alston Papers in Various Small Collections, Box 7, Folder 4, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.
Alston, M., p. 45.
Ibid., p. 49.
Ibid., p. 1.