DR. SESSOMS Distinguished African American physician, surgeon and family man,

Dr. Fred Sessoms devoted intense efforts to being a good single parent, father and doctor after the death of his first wife. He realized he could not continue alone. He began corresponding via mail with Miss Callie Kirkland of Chapel Hill,

N.C. He had first met her at Shaw University in 1902 while he was in medical school. She had been regarded on campus by both students and faculty alike as one of the more talented and charming young ladies at Shaw. She had been raised in a God-fearing and hard working family. Her father, Jesse, was an accomplished masonry contractor who had supervised much of the masonry work in the construction of the world-renowned University of North Carolina campus. Now on the faculty of Kittrell College in N.C., Callie, like Fred, was mature, well educated, and prepared for a lifetime of commitment to one another.

They were married on July 17, 1919. To their union was born three children; Mary Alice in 1920, Janet Elizabeth in 1921, and Carolyn in 1923. Due to lifelong health challenges related to sickle cell anemia,

Mary Alice passed in 1940. Tragedy struck in 1926 when baby Carolyn passed. And tragedy struck in 1938 when his daughter from his first modules._marriage,inr0d2dMadie passed. The heartache must have been overwhelming, but Fred and Callie persevered.

Janet Elizabeth was the sole survivor of the four Sessoms children. Much like her father, Janet had a great thirst for education. She holds degrees from Hampton, University of Iowa, and she completed all the course work for her PhD Degree in Child Psychology from the University of Minnesota. She married Edward L. Wilkerson, M.D. in 1946.

(He is the author of the biography of Dr. Fred Sessoms entitled, Struggling To Climb-A Biography). To their union was born four gifted and talented children; Freda Sessoms

Wilkerson, Joyce Sessoms Wilkerson, Edward L. Wilkerson, Jr., and Elizabeth Sessoms Wilkerson. Fred and Callie Sessoms also raised and educated Rosalyn Kirkland Hawkins, daughter of Callie Sessoms’ deceased sister and her husband. Rosalyn is an educator with a degree from Virginia State University. In his biography, Dr. Wilkerson states that Dr. Sessoms “spent, literally, a fortune in preparing numerous membersmodules of his in family to educate themselves in order to educate others of his race. If he didn’t, who would?” Further speaking of  Dr. Sessoms, Dr. Wilkerson goes on to say, “He is the simple man of simple tastes that he has always been, and always will be. To educate his family, was the basic value he placed in money, along with its use for bettering his equipment and knowledge purely to improve the health of all who asked it of him.” The roaring 20s was a period of prosperity for most of the nation, but the devastation caused by the boll weevil meant that Georgia and the South experienced economic hardship. Dr. Sessoms helped individual farmers save their farms, if he could. The stock market crash of 1929 meant that economy of the entire nation crashed like a house of match sticks. Unable to sustain themselves, many black farmers and their families migrated to the North to seek employment during this Great Depression. In an effort to offer hope to blacks and whites, Dr. Sessions  had the idea of persuading the President of Tuskegee Institute, Dr. R. R. Moton, the acknowledged replacement of the recently deceased Booker T. Washington,display as the spoke for black people, to come to Washington to bring strength  of heart, and confidence in the future, to his weary and  simistic friends and neighbors.”

With the assistance of Dr. George Washington Carver who had once visited the Sessoms family in Washington, Dr. Sessoms was successful in convincing Dr. Moton to come to Washington in October 1924 to speak to our citizens “of hope and of promise, of fortitude and of loyalty to the community.”

Dr Wilkerson writes, “Looking back upon that momentous day, Dr. Sessoms says today, that it was one of the greatest events ever witnessed in the entire history of Wilkes County, Georgia. On the day the prominent leader was to speak, thousands of blacks and whites stopped; jammed the square; all work in that and the far surrounding area stopped; farmers with their full families had come in from the country in every conceivable type of wheeled vehicle available; many trudged into town on foot. Before daybreak the city was crowded with those who believed that, as Dr.Sessoms had promised, new hope would be felt, shared, and become an accomplished fact.” A strong and spellbinding orator, Dr. Moton arrived in a special Pullman car, prepared for the challenging occasion. Dr. Wilkerson continues, “Dr. Moton advised blacks to stay where they were, and urged whites to have courage and work together with blacks in an endeavor to overcome their mutual financial distress. The listening crowd absorbed every word of this great man’s logic and reason, and during the course of his profound delivery, one could hear the proverbial pin drop. The effects of Dr. Moton’s visit to Washington were immediate, with such reactions as confidence, zeal and faith in the future as the first manifestations. These feelings grew in strength as clusters of the listeners discussed the import of the talk and its consequences.

Even with all the encouragement  given by Dr. Moton, “the South in general and Georgia in particular, had little or no interest or concern in the matter of Negro education in the first half of the 20th century.” Just as it was with him a generation earlier, Dr. Sessoms had to send his children away to complete high school because their home town did not provide an adequate academic institution for the education of black students. Moreover, he provided a significant amount of time, energy and money for the development of Shiloh Academy,

Baptist-supported school devoted the education of young black students. It was also necessary for every rural black church in Wilkes County to build and equip a one or two room wooden school on the church campus, with minimum support from the County Board of Education. Usually one teacher/administrator was responsible for the entire curriculum, limited though it was, for dozens of students in grades one through six. These schools operated fewer months than schools for white students because of planting and harvesting cycle of farm life. Dr. Sessoms fought hard to ensure that black students had better educational opportunities in Wilkes County.

Throughout his life, Dr. Sessoms remained loyal and dedicated to his family, his medical practice, Wilkes County, and his alma mater - Shaw University. He was much loved, respected, and recognized by members of each of these entities. He has many citations, awards, honors, and other tokens of appreciation to evidence the high regard in which he is held. His beautiful home continues to stand on Lexington Avenue. Down the road a bit stands “Sessoms Apartments,” named in his honor. Last October, the Washington Little Theater Company and the Washington-Wilkes Historic Foundation presented a production written by R.M. “Skeet” Willingham Jr. entitled “Resthaven Revisited.” It was a stroll through the town’s historic cemetery to meet some of its most famous residents. Among them is Dr. Sessoms. It was the good fortune of the writer of this article to play the part of Dr. Sessoms and share with the hundreds of patrons inspiring and significant events and facts from the fifty-six year medical career of Dr. Sessoms in Wilkes County and from his eighty-three years of life. Indeed, he is an unsung hero of Wilkes County