Carrie Williams was an African American teacher at Coketon Colored School, a segregated school serving a coal-mining community in Tucker County.

In 1892, local education officials reduced the school year for Black students from eight months to five months while maintaining the full term for white schools.

Williams refused to accept this unequal treatment and continued teaching for eight months, receiving no salary for the final three.

She sought assistance from John Robert Clifford, West Virginia's first African American attorney, who represented her in a lawsuit against the school board.

A Tucker County court ruled in her favor and awarded $120 in unpaid wages.

The board appealed the judgment to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.

On November 16, 1898, the court upheld Williams's victory, declaring that school officials could not discriminate against Black students by shortening their school year.

Although the decision did not abolish segregated education, it established an important protection for equal educational opportunities.

Today, historical markers in Thomas and Parsons commemorate Carrie Williams, J. R. Clifford, and their landmark civil rights case.