Snow Hill Festival to bring alumni, community to historic campus this weekend

Snow Hill’s past and future will come together at the Snow Hill Festival on Saturday, July 25 on the grounds of the historic campus in Wilcox County.

Gates open at 9:30 a.m., and the public program begins at 11. The day will include live entertainment, games, vendors, a car and bike show, and a horse showcase honoring the Cushion family. A private morning brunch will recognize alumni, heirs and community members who shaped Snow Hill’s legacy.

Nameica Turk‑Craig, executive director and founder of the Snow Hill Festival, who grew up on the campus and later returned home after years away, said her earliest memories are rooted in the old school grounds.

“My school years started here on Snow Hill campus,” she said. “I did music with Ms. Consuela Lee. My summers were spent here.” 

Even after the school closed in 1973, she said the community kept the grounds alive through youth and summer lunch programs, and vacation Bible school.

Snow Hill Institute was founded in 1893 by William James Edwards, a Tuskegee graduate who followed Booker T. Washington’s charge to return home and build institutions for Black communities. 

His grandson, Wendell H. Edwards Jr., said the school began in a donated log cabin and grew into a sprawling campus. 

“It started from about two acres and eventually bloomed into 1,900 acres of property,” Edwards said. “There were once upon a time 18 buildings on this campus.”

Clara Hall‑Gully, a 1966 graduate and president of the Snow Hill Institute Alumni Association, said the school’s reach extended far beyond Wilcox County. Paul Nunn, whose grandfather graduated from Snow Hill before attending Harvard, explained that graduates went on to establish schools across the South. 

“This school sent people out to do other schools,” Nunn said. “One of our most notable schools is in Laurenburg, North Carolina. That school still stands.”

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Another Alabama school with Snow Hill roots is E.M. Brown, just a few minutes away in Dallas County. Emanuel M. Brown was a graduate of Snow Hill and Tuskegee, and with the support of both, he opened E.M. Brown school in 1904.

Nunn said Snow Hill’s model mirrored Tuskegee’s emphasis on self-sufficiency. 

“Food, building materials – all those things – were cultivated within the student body,” he said. “They built the campus and took care of the campus.”

The group also shared stories of Snow Hill’s close-knit families, including the Bonners, longtime groundskeepers, and the Cushions, known locally as the area’s Black cowboys. 

“(Ralph Cushion) was a real cowboy,” Turk‑Craig said. “He broke horses. He did everything. We’re honoring people like that on that day at Snow Hill Fest.”

Turk‑Craig said the idea for the festival grew out of concern over the deteriorating buildings. “I would always come over and see it just going down, down, down,” she said. After seeing an article about the abandoned campus two years ago, she joined alumni already working on restoration plans. Fundraising efforts followed, including a GoFundMe account, raffles and now, the festival.

“The purpose of this was to bring the community of Snow Hill back together,” Turk‑Craig said. “We want to rebuild the memories and make it a thriving community again.”

She said more than 200 wristbands have already been sold. “It’s open to the public,” she said. “Everything goes toward the fund.”

The goal is to restore two surviving structures: the vocational building and the old gym. “We would love to see the doors open again,” Turk‑Craig said. “We want programs for our youth and seniors in the community.”

Wristbands, T‑shirts, vendor registration and sponsorship information are available at www.snowhillfest.com.