William Grant Still Sr. was born in 1871, just seven years after the Union Army marched into Woodville, put down Confederate rebels, and the 3rd U.S. Colored Cavalry burned Edward McGehee’s Bowling Green plantation. Those events occurred before William’s birth, but their consequences shaped the Woodville community into which he was born. In 1870, Wilkinson County had 12,705 residents, nearly 79 percent of whom were classified as “colored” in the census. During Reconstruction, Black voters helped elect local, district, and statewide officers. Testimony collected by the U.S. Senate and published in the 1876 U.S. Senate report Mississippi in 1875 documents the violence and political intimidation surrounding the struggle for political control in Wilkinson County. In 1876, five years after William was born, ex-Confederate soldiers invaded Wilkinson County, attacked and murdered its Black citizens, including prominent Black political leaders, with contemporary newspaper accounts reporting dozens killed. The violence intimidated and disenfranchised Black voters and helped enforce white minority rule. Similar patterns occurred throughout the South as the gains won in the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction gave way to post-Reconstruction white supremacy.
Eileen Jackson Southern (1920–2002), one of the founders of Black music scholarship and author of The Music of Black Americans: A History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), wrote about composer William Grant Still Jr. and his “nationalistic” style drawing from forms of African American music. In a 1969 interview with him, later published in The Black Perspective in Music, she asked him about his father and his musical background:
Eileen Southern: Did you come from a musical family? What was the source of your great talent? William Grant Still: I should say my father—he was a William Grant also—was quite musical. Both he and my mother were teachers in Normal Alabama, before they moved to Woodville, Mississippi, where I was born.
Eileen Southern: Go on about your father. WGS: He was a graduate of Alcorn College [Mississippi]. In Woodville, he taught math and was at the same time the village bandleader. He also had half-interest in a store. He had learned to play the cornet the hard way. He had to make a seventy-five-mile round trip to Baton Rouge each time he took a lesson because there were no good teachers any closer. And after he learned, he organized the village band. The townspeople were very proud of that band, especially when it paraded.
Eileen Southern: Who played in the band? WGS: Well, it was a rural community; and I suppose any musicians who were around played in the band.
Eileen Southern: White as well as black? WGS: I don’t know.
Eileen Southern: Was your father a composer also? WGS: Do you know—they found some scraps of his compositions after his death, but I don’t think he thought of himself as a real composer. Who knows what he might have done with music had he lived. He died when I was only a few months old.
(Source: Southern, Eileen, and William Grant Still. “William Grant Still.” The Black Perspective in Music 3, no. 2 (1975): 165–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/1214286)
When I first learned that the composer William Grant Still had two parents who were college educated, it caught me off guard, and I must say I was a little shocked. But now, a decade later, I am not at all surprised by what I find about Reconstruction-era education of Blacks in the South. The Freedmen’s Bureau records in Woodville document postwar efforts to find and organize schools, provide supplies, and pay teachers. By 1876, however, racial violence and political intimidation severely disrupted Black education and drove many teachers in Black schools from the community.
The 1880 U.S. Federal Population Census of Wilkinson County provides the first census record in this period that directly documents William Grant Still Sr. in Duncan and Mary Still’s household. Dwelling no. 306 lists Duncan Still, mulatto, age 42, a farmer born in Mississippi, with a father born in Kentucky and a mother born in Mississippi. Mary Still, his wife, is listed as mulatto, age 42, born in Kentucky, with both parents born in Kentucky. Kentucky is a recurring theme in the family origin story. Daughter Annie Still, mulatto, age 19, is listed and crossed out. After studying the census repeatedly, sharp eyes filled with early-morning coffee can see that she appears below Duncan Still in dwelling no. 307 with her new husband, Scott Green. Daughter Milly, mulatto, age 15, is listed as a farmhand; the census also records that she attended school in 1880 and could read and write. William (Wm), age 9, is listed as a mulatto son and farmhand who attended school in 1880 and could read and write. “Farmhand” is the occupation recorded for him by the census enumerator. At only nine years old, William was already recorded as having attended school and being able to read and write, which is an important early marker in the educational path that would eventually take him to Alcorn A&M College. The 1880 U.S. census is the only surviving federal population census that lists William Grant Still Sr. during his lifetime. He was born in 1871 and died in 1895, before the 1900 census was taken.
Duncan Still appears as the head of household in the Wilkinson County Black Family Educable School Censuses of 1885, 1890, and 1894. The ages of the head of household and spouse are typically not listed. It is important to point out that these school censuses enumerate educable children; they do not, by themselves, prove that a child attended a particular school in Woodville. The 1885 school census is the next surviving record in this series that places William with the Still family in Wilkinson County. It lists William, age 12; Mary, age 9; and Florence, age 7, in Duncan Still’s household.
Because most of the 1890 federal population census was destroyed, the Mississippi school census provides a valuable substitute for locating William and his family. In the 1890 school census, grandson Julius Green, age 5, son of Annie, is in Duncan’s household along with Florence, age 8; Mary, age 13; and William, age 18. Although this record falls beyond the 1871–1888 period of this blog, it provides useful evidence of William’s continuing connection to Duncan Still’s Wilkinson County household. More importantly for the endpoint of this article, the 1888–1889 Alcorn A&M College Catalog shows William enrolled as a freshman when he would have been 17 years old. The surviving documents show a striking educational progression: in 1880, at age nine, he was recorded as having attended school and being able to read and write; by 1888, at age seventeen, he had entered Alcorn A&M College.
Next: William Grant Still Sr. – Alcornite & Educator 1888-1895
© 2026 Alvin D. Blakes. All rights reserved. Suggested citation: Alvin D. Blakes, “William Grant Still Sr. in Woodville 1871–1888,” Almost Disappeared, published August 2026, https://almostdisappeared.com.
