Donella Brown Wilson

Donella Brown Wilson (May 24, 1909 – January 12, 2018) was an American educator, civil-rights advocate, and long-time community leader in South Carolina.

Early life and education Donella Brown Wilson was born May 24, 1909, to Henry and Minnie Bryant Brown on the Peterkin Plantation in Fort Motte, Calhoun County, South Carolina. Her parents worked as sharecroppers on the land that her enslaved grandparents had previously worked.

Wilson did not have formal schooling locally; she taught herself to read by studying a Sears & Roebuck catalog and listening to her grandmother read the Bible. Her grandmother also supported her early literacy through prayers and reading the Bible.

Teaching career and activism Wilson taught in the rural counties of South Carolina, including Lexington and Orangeburg. In the 1940s, after the NAACP successfully fought for equal pay for Black teachers, most notably in Duvall v. Seignous and Thompson v. Gibbes, Wilson and her husband, who was also a teacher, asked for sick leave and additional compensation comparable to that of white teachers; the school district refused. Neither of their Lexington teaching contracts were renewed as a result. Wilson later joined Roberts High School in Holly Hill, Orangeburg County, where she taught for nearly two decades. She retired in 1971 after 40 years of teaching. In 2011, she was featured in the AT&T African American History Calendar. In 2017, Governor Henry McMaster awarded her the Order of the Palmetto. At 108 years old, Donella Brown Wilson passed away in 2018, surrounded by her family. Wilson helped educate thousands of students and was an active member of her community.