Gravesite Dedication Honors Alton High School's First Black Graduate
ALTON - Community members and organization leaders gathered to honor Alton High School’s first Black graduate, Charles Newton, and his wife, Sara Newton Cohron, with a gravesite dedication and proclamation on June 24.
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Lacy McDonald, genealogy and local history manager for the Hayner Public Library District (and secretary of the Vintage Voices Committee), spoke at the event and gave insight into the current grave marker’s history.
McDonald said that Vintage Voices, the Hayner Public Library District, and Ralph Bowles at Gent Funeral Home teamed up to install a marker at the Newtons’ gravesite in September of 2022, but waited until June 24 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Newton’s graduation from AHS.
Kristie Baumgartner, superintendent of the Alton School District, said the site carries historical significance for both Alton and Alton High School, highlighting the societal differences of Newton’s time.
“The placement of the gravestone and the dedication today are really significant in both the history of Alton, but also the history of Alton High School,” Baumgartner said. “When we think about Professor Newton’s milestone graduation from Alton High School 150 years ago, you really have to think about the accounts and what has been shared about what kind of time it was right here in Alton - it was a very contentious, a very controversial time, and both hate and bigotry were running rampant.”
Baumgartner added that the marker carries a reminder not only of Alton’s past, but also the city’s present.
“The placement of the gravestone for Professor Newton and Mrs. Cohron is really significant, because it serves not only as a critically needed memorial marker, but it also serves as a hallmark to Professor Newton’s graduation … as well as the historical gravity of what that has meant for students over the past 150 years, and what it still means today for the students at Alton High School that walk our hallways and sit in our classrooms,” she said.
Charles Newton was born in Missouri in late 1855. He officially became the first Black graduate of AHS in 1873, but he technically never attended a class at the high school, since schools were segregated by race at the time - instead, he attended Lincoln School. Upon graduation, he became the first member of the Alton Black Alumni Association.
After his graduation, Black parents in Alton started sending their kids to Alton School District schools, a practice which was accepted by the larger community and integrated the Alton School District for 24 years until 1897, when city officials built two new elementary schools and re-segregated the district.
Sara Newton Cohron left a legacy of her own, working as a schoolteacher and helping to found the St. Louis Colored Orphans' Home, now known as the Annie Malone Children's Home. She was also a community organizer responsible for putting together the first-ever Annie Malone May Day Parade in 1910.
A full recording of the dedication, including the Vintage Voices performances and comments from more speakers, can be watched at the top of this story or on Riverbender.com/video.
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