Gravestone Dedication This Weekend for First Black AHS Grad and Founder of Children's Home

Sydney Sinks, News Reporter

Jun 23, 2023 10:51 AM Jun 23, 2023 11:19 AM

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ALTON - The Hayner Public Library District and Vintage Voices are sponsoring a gravestone dedication for Professor Charles Newton and his wife Sara Woodson Newton Cohron. Newton was the first Black graduate of Alton High School, and Cohron helped found the Colored Orphans Home in St. Louis.

This week marks the 150th anniversary of Newton’s graduation in 1873. The couple and their accomplishments will be celebrated at 10 a.m. this Saturday, June 24, at Alton Cemetery.

“My joy with Vintage Voices is seeing how the people — that maybe have been forgotten — dedicated themselves to Alton and this area while they were alive,” Lacy McDonald, Hayner Genealogy and Local History Library Manager, said. “They might have been well-known in their lifetime, but we don’t tend to remember just the regular people that have lived in the area that we live in.”

McDonald began researching Newton and Cohron a few years ago in preparation for Vintage Voices, a program that honors interesting figures in Alton history by portraying them at their gravesites in Alton Cemetery. Newton originally caught her attention because of his graduation, but as McDonald continued her research, she became equally impressed by his wife.

Newton was born in Missouri in 1855, and he died in September of 1886 at either 30 or 31 years old. Alton schools were segregated at the time, so Newton attended the African-American high school but was invited to graduate with the white Alton High School class because of his academic achievements. Fifteen students were set to graduate; four refused because of their racist beliefs.

After high school, Newton attended Shurtleff College in Alton. He then moved to St. Louis and became the principal of one of the African-American schools there.

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“It was certainly a struggle. He had to fight for all this, and his family continued that fight after he died,” McDonald said, adding that Newton’s niece would go on to help desegregate Alton elementary schools in the 1890s.

Two years after Newton’s passing, Cohron founded the Colored Orphans Home in St. Louis in 1888. The building is now known as the Annie Malone Children and Family Services Center, and it still serves as a home and crisis center for St. Louis kids.

While this is a major accomplishment, McDonald was also fascinated by Cohron because she had a prenuptial agreement drawn up before she remarried, likely to protect Cohron’s family money and money from Newton’s life insurance policy. This was pretty much unheard of in 1891 when it was signed by Cohron’s second husband.

Saturday’s ceremony will include additional information about Newton and Cohron’s lives. Actors Jared Hennings and Velva Parker will reprise their Vintage Voices roles as Newton and Cohron, respectively. Reverend Kelvin Ellison of Union Baptist Church will lead the invocation and benediction; Newton used to attend Union Baptist Church, and this is where his funeral was held.

Kristie Baumgartner, Alton School District superintendent, and Keisha Lee, the CEO of the Annie Malone Center, will both make comments. Alton Mayor David Goins is expected to read a proclamation.

The actual gravestone dedication will be completed by Jody Basola, the president of the Vintage Voices Committee. The gravestone was donated by Ralph Bowles with Gent Funeral Home.

Roughly half of the gravesites in Alton Cemetery don’t have gravestones, but Newton and Cohron’s gravesite will now be marked. McDonald hopes the ceremony will help them be remembered, as is always the goal with the genealogy and Vintage Voices programs.

“Hundreds of people have made this place better and have made everything in the United States better, so it’s cool to get to highlight those, even just a little bit, because now they aren’t getting completely lost,” McDonald said. “I find it very inspiring because then we can be those people.”

You can contact Hayner Public Library to reach McDonald and find out more. Vintage Voices will also hold auditions this weekend for their annual cemetery tour later this year. Visit their Facebook page for more information.

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