Kate's Notes: The most thorough report I have found regarding the Gilleland-Graham case was published in 2004 in A Lot of Bunkum, the 25th anniversary edition newsletter of the Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society of Asheville, North Carolina. In her seven-page essay Kathy Staley provided background information on the families which was not provided in newspaper coverage of the case. This edition of the OBCGS also contains some scattered information on other Gillilands. For more information on the Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society, or to order back issues of their newsletter, please visit their website at http://www.obcgs.com/
    What I have provided below are scattered newspaper reports of the case. Due to copyright restrictions, I am not able to provide a transcript of the essay from the OBCGS newsletter.

The Landmark 
Statesville, North Carolina
November 28, 1905

An Interesting and Important 
Case in Buncombe Court.

Asheville Dispatch 25th
   The mandamus proceeding instituted by Robert Gilliland against the Buncombe county board of education to compel the reinstatement of his children in the white schools of the county was this afternoon decided in behalf of the plaintiffs, the Gilliland girls.
   The issue submitted by the court to the jury was, "Are the infant plaintiffs entitled to admission into the white schools of Buncombe County?" After fifteen minutes' deliberation the jury answered "Yes."
   Although the issue was not so stated it necessarily results that the jury found that the plaintiff Gillilands and Grahams, and their connections, numbering probably 500, are of untatinted white blood, and that the defendants failed to make out a case of Negro ancestry to the satisfaction of the jury.
   The children were forbidden the white schools on the ground that a remote ancestor on their mother's side was a negro, it being admitted that they were otherwise entitled to admission into the white schools. The defence endeavored to show that the Gillilands have in their neighborhood borne the reputation of being part negro and that the Grahams, Mrs. Gilliland's family, two or three generations ago, had enough of the physical characteristics of the negro to warrant this belief.
   The plaintiff, on the other hand, endeavored to show to the satisfaction of this jury, that these reports are groundless and are based upon the fact that Jeffrey Graham, the great grandfather of the plaintiff, was a Portuguese.*
   [It seems that for some reason these children had never attended the public schools and when an effort was made to send them they were refused on the gorund of negor blood. action was then brought to force their admission. the case was very important because it affected a large number of respectable and well-to-do people.]

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The Washington Post
Washington, D. C.
December 5, 1905

OSTRACIZED BY VERDICT.
_______________

Court  Declares Girls White, and Five 
Hundred People Are Put Under Ban.
_______________

Special to the Washington Post

    Asheville, N. C., Dec 5. -- The declaration last week of the Federal Court in favor of the six Gilleland girls, who brought suit to compel the county board of education to admit them to the white school of Averys Creek township, has resulted in racial ostracism of the Gilleland and Graham families, of whom there are probably 500, who have intermarried, living in the mountains. The real object of the suit, it is said, was to establish that the Gillelands are of Portuguese, not negro blood. In effect they were adjudged to be whites, but their white neighbors have ostracized them as never before, and the entire community, which before the bringing of the suit felt no antagonism against the Gillelands and Grahams, is now violently antagonistic.
    Thanksgiving Day in the Averys Creek township was observed by the holding of two big mass meetings, at which resolutions were passed denouncing the decisions of the court, calling on the board of education to carry the case to the Supreme Court, and declaring that the people would never recognize the Gillelands as whites.
    Averys Creek’s extremists have begun a movement to run the Gillelands and Grahams away from their homes, and take more extreme measures if the girls attempt to attend the white school, which so far they have not done.

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From The Landmark 
Statesville, North Carolina
Friday, December 8, 1905

Not Satisfied With The Verdict
A Bitter Contest Promised in Buncombe

Asheville Dispatch 4th
   The recent verdict of a Buncombe county Superior Court that the children of Robert Gilliland, of Avery’s Creek township, and descendants of Jeffrey Graham were white, and had no negro blood in their veins, has called forth a storm of protest from the white citizens of Avery’s Creek, and a petition signed by almost a hundred white voters and tax payers of that section, calling on the county board of education to fight the case to the bitter end, and on the “white people of Buncombe county to rally to the support of the educational board and avert the great evil.”
   At a rousing mass meeting, held in Avery’s Creek township Thanksgiving Day, resolutions condemning the verdict of the jury were adopted. The resolutions were signed by the people of that section of the county, and today presented to the county board of education.
   Just what further legal steps will be taken to prevent the Gillilands from attending the white schools are not known, but it is now believed that the school board will prosecute on appeal from the lower court. Information from Avery’s Creek today is to the effect that the white people are stirred up and indignant, and that the more hot-headed of the inhabitants declare that the Gillilands will be run out of the community before the Gilliland children will be allowed to attend the white schools.

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The Landmark 
Statesville, North Carolina
Tuesday, January 16, 1906

State News

   The public will recall the Gilliland case, tried recently in Buncombe Superior Court, in which one Gilliland brought suit against the Buncombe board of education to force the admission of his children into the white schools, they having been excluded on the ground of negro blood. Gilliland won his case in the Superior Court, the jury finding that his children had no tainted blood. Although, on account of local prejudice, he has not attempted to send his children to the white schools, and the board of education did not appeal the case, persons interested have decided to carry the case up.

-- transcriptions by Kate Maynard, 2010