In Journey in Learning and Teaching Science, Winston-Salem native Dr. Sondra Barber Akins writes that the "quest for learning was a legacy passed on to African Americans by African American educators of the many historically Black colleges in the South." Akins was educated in the all-Black public schools that Simon Green Atkins and wife Oleona Pegram Atkins helped lay the foundation for. The former, a graduate of Saint Augustine's Normal Collegiate Institute, and the latter, a graduate of Scotia Seminary and Fisk University, took special interest in the educational training that took place in Winston-Salem throughout the early 20th century and set the stage for the "Big Four," the four Black high schools in the area. The centers of learning they built trained educational institution-builders who cared for their students in ways a family member would.

Artist Alexandria P. Clay continues her study on 20th century North Carolina Black educators focusing on the quartet of high schools in Forsyth County - Anderson, Atkins, Carver, and Paisley. In the series Portraits of the Big Four, Clay uses her wet charcoal technique, responding primarily to yearbook images with an attentiveness that mirrors how these educators attended to the welfare of their students.

Image references: The image references for the portraits are from Big Four yearbooks, including issues of The Bulldog (Anderson), Golden Outlook (Paisley), The Maroon and Gold (Atkins), and The Yellow Jacket (Carver). Reference images are courtesy of Forsyth County Public Library, Winston-Salem State University Archives, and DigitalNC. The image of John A. Carter is from The Sentinel, June 16, 1959.