Making history: 6 Black people in the Wilmington area to be the first at their jobs

When you hear names such as Jackie Robinson, Barack Obama, Thurgood Marshall and Ketanji Brown Jackson, what comes to mind?

These four and many others have broken a "color barrier" at a place or profession and most of all made history.

Here are six Black people who made similar history in the Wilmington area.

Joseph McQueen Jr.

The first recorded sheriff of New Hanover County was in 1739.

It would take 243 years before a Black person would hold that office.

Joseph McQueen Jr. was elected sheriff of New Hanover County in November 1982 and served until his retirement in 2002.

In 1965, McQueen had graduated from all-Black Williston High School. Upon his early days as a deputy sheriff, McQueen was assigned to patrol the halls of Hoggard High School, where racial unrest had continued to flare in the early 1970s.

Louise McColl, a Wilmington native and 2011 StarNews Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, has known McQueen for more than 30 years.

"Joe was a tough sheriff," she said in a 2019 StarNews story on McQueen. "Tough on crime. He cared about the people in New Hanover County."

Mary Washington Howe

Mary Washington Howe was a teacher and principal at Williston Grammar School in Wilmington from 1874 until her death in 1900. Howe, who became the first Black woman to become a school principal, died at the age of 48.

To mark her strong love of education, an elementary school was named after her at the corner of 10th and Meares streets. It opened in 1963.

The school today is known as Mary Washington Howe Pre-K Center.

Joan Coco

Joan Coco started working in the New Hanover County Public Library in 1967 when she was a sophomore at Williston High School. Coco, at the age of 16, became the first Black employee to work at Wilmington's "white" library. She started in the back away from white patrons, typing labels and processing new books.

In July 2007, after nearly a 40-year career, Coco retired to spend more time with her daughter and three grandchildren.

James Francis Shober

James Francis Shober was North Carolina's first licensed Black physician and practiced in Wilmington.

Upon graduating from Howard University School of Medicine in 1878, Shober traveled to Wilmington and opened a doctor’s office at 713 Princess St.

In 1889, he died at the age of 36 and was buried at Pine Forest Cemetery.

Caterina Jarboro

Caterina Jarboro was born in Wilmington on July 24, 1898. At the age of 29, Jarboro was the first Black woman to perform in a U.S. opera house in 1933 as part of the Chicago Opera Company at Manhattan's Hippodrome.

Jarboro made appearances at Wilmington's Thalian Hall in 1932 and 1933 to perform benefit concerts for St. Luke AME Zion Church and Wilmingtonians who were suffering through the Great Depression.

After a brief illness, Jarboro died at her Manhattan home in 1986.

The opera singer has a star on the Wilmington Walk of Fame.

Wanda Bryant

Wanda Bryant, a native of Supply and raised in the Cedar Grove community, is the first Black woman to serve as an assistant district attorney in Brunswick County, serving from 1983 to 1987. After graduating from West Brunswick High School, Bryant earned an undergraduate from Duke University and earned a Juris Doctor degree from North Carolina Central School of Law. After working as a prosecutor in Bolivia, Bryant worked as an assistant U.S. Attorney, and a Senior Deputy Attorney General for the state.

In 2001, Bryant was appointed to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, serving for 19 years until her retirement.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Black people in Wilmington, NC who made history