"William-Hooper-Council" (July 12,1848-April 17,1909)

Educator,was born in Fayetteville,North  Carolina,the son of William Council & Mary Jane(maiden name unknown),slaves.In 1854 William's daddy escaped to freedom in Canada,leaving his wife and children to be dispersed in the south by slave traders.In 1863 William,his mama and his youngest brother escaped from a plantation in northern Alabama to a U.S. Army camp in Chattanooga,Tennessee.William attended a freedmen's school in Stevenson,Alabama,from 1865-1867 and later was tutored at night in Latin,physics,chemistry,and mathematics.In 1867 he established a school for
freedmen in Jackson County and in 1869 began another in Madison County,laboring under the constant threat of Ku Klux Klan violence.

As a young man,he made contacts and receive appointments that established him as an emerging African American leader in Alabama.William was active in the state's African Methodist Episcopal Church,the Prince Hall Masons,and the Independent Order of  Immaculates and the Pallbearers.William also organized branches of the

National Labor Union,served as secretary of the 1873 National Equal Rights convention,and attended the 1874 Chattanooga Convention of Republications.