Slavery is a tragic chapter in the history of Wilkes County with a lasting legacy. Prominent businessmen and celebrated civic leaders, like General William Lenoir and William Pitt Waugh, were among the county's largest slaveholders. Judith Williams Barber endured forty-five years of slavery and garnered respect from both white and black residents. Her story is linked to free person of color and noted landowner Henderson Waugh, whose illustrious, slaveholding white father connected the two families—one slave and the other free. Author Larry Griffin takes readers on an emotional journey to separate fact from myth as he chronicles the history of slavery in Wilkes County.
Larry J. Griffin is an international education consultant and founder of the Griffin Education Institute for Study and Teaching. He is an award-winning columnist for the Record in Wilkes County, writing the column Setting the Record Straight. He has received four awards from the North Carolina Society of Historians, including the prestigious President's Award of Excellence. Larry has served as a curator for the Wilkes Heritage Museum, is a member of the Wilkes County Genealogical Society and teaches early childhood classes for Wilkes County Community College. He holds a BA in early childhood and elementary education and an MEd in education administration from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC).